Sebouh Aslanian

Professor of History
Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair of Modern Armenian History

Selected Publications

From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa, (Berkley: University of California Press, 2011) 

Dispersion History and the Polycentric Nation: The Role of Simeon Yerevantsi’s Girk or Kochi Partavjar in the 18th Century National Revival (Venice: Bibliotheque d’armenologie “Bazmavep,” 39, 2004); pages 1-26, 27-93

““Many have come here and have deceived us”: Some Notes on Asateur Vardapet (1644-1728), An Itinerant Armenian Monk in Europe*”, Handes Amsorya, Zeitschrift Fur Armenische Philologie (2019): 134-194.

“Une vie sur plusieurs continents Microhistoire globale d’un agent arménien de la Compagnie des Indes orientales, 1666-1688”, Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales (2018): 19-55.

“From “Autonomous” to “Interactive” Histories: World History’s Challenge to Armenian Studies”, An Armenian Mediterranean, Words and Worlds in Motion (2018): 81-125.

“The Great Schism of 1773”, Reflections of Armenian Identity in History and Historiography (2018):  83-131.

“Prepared in the Language of the Hagarites: Abbot Mkhitar’s 1727 Armeno-Turkish Grammar for Vernacular Western Armenian,” Journal for the Society of Armenian Studies (2017): 54-86.

“Julfan Merchants and European East India Companies: Overland Trade, Protection Costs and the Limits of Collective Self-Representation in Early Modern Safavid Iran,” in Mapping Safavid Iran, edited by Nobuaki Kondo (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 2016).

Mijmayrts‘amak‘ayin kent‘agh mĕ. Marcara Awakshēnts‘i fransakan arevelahntkakan ĕnkerut‘ean hay tnorenin hamasharhayin manrapatmut‘iwnĕ (1668-1688),” Handes Amsorea, (2016): 148-272. Western Armenian version of my essay on Marcara Avachintz and the French Compagnie des Indes Orientales, 1668-1688).

“Too Much Memory? Remembrance and Forgetting at the Crossroads of the Centenary of the Armenian Genocide,” Jadaliyya, 21 April 2015. http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/21445/too-much-memory-remembering-and-forgetting-at-the-

Jughayets‘i Vacharakanner ev evropakan arevelahdkakan ěnkerutyunner, ts‘amak‘ayin arevtur, pashtpanut‘ean tsakhser ev havak‘akan inknanerkayats‘man sahmannerě vagh ardi Sefean irani mēj (Armenian translation of Julfan Merchants and European East India Companies….) Handes Amsorea (2015): 237-290. (Western Armenian version of my Julfan Merchants and European East India Companies,” essay published in 2016.

“The Early Arrival of Print in Safavid Iran: New Light on the First Armenian Printing Press in New Julfa, Isfahan (1636–1650, 1686–1693),” Handes Amsorya (Vienna/Yerevan: 2014): 381-468.

“Reader Response and the Circulation of Mkhitarist Books Across the Armenian Communities of the Early Modern Indian Ocean,” Journal for the Society of Armenian Studies, 22, 1 (2013): 31-70.

“Port Cities and Printers: Reflections on Early Modern Global Armenian Print,” Book History 17 (2014): 51-93.

“AHR Conversation—How Size Matters: The Question of Scale in History,” in American Historical Review (December, 2013): 1468–69.

“A Reader Responds to Joseph Emin’s Life and Adventures: Notes towards a History of Reading in Late Eighteenth Century Madras,” Handes Amsorya (Vienna/Yerevan, 2012), 363-418.

“‘Wings on their Feet and Wings on their Heads’: Reflections on Five Centuries of Global Armenian Print,” Armenian Weekly, (August 28, 2012).

“La fioritura culturale delle comunità armene in India e nel mondo dell’Oceano indiano e lo sviluppo del pensiero sociale e politico durante il secolo XVIII” [The Cultural Flourishing of the Armenian Communities in India and the Indian Ocean World and the Development of their Social and Political Thought during the Eighteenth Century] in Armenia: Impronte di una civilta’ eds. Levon B. Zekiyan, Gabriela Uluhogian, and Vartan Karapetian, (Venice, 2011)

Encyclopaedia Iranica entries for “The Sceriman/Shahrimanian family of Julfa” and “Armenians in India.” The latter is published — Encyclopaedia Iranica, XV, 3 (2009): 240-242. Forthcoming online: www.iranica.com

“Geniza, Aden, and Indian Ocean Trade in the Middle Ages: A Review Article,” Journal of Global History, (2008) 3: 451-457

“India Before Europe” (book review), Journal of Early Modern History, Volume 13, Number 1, 2009, pp. 83-85

“Some Notes on a Letter sent by an Armenian Priest in Bengal in 1727,” in Between Paris and Fresno: Armenian Studies in Honor of Dickran Kouymjian, Barlow Der Mugrdechian, ed. (Costa Mesa: Mazda Press: 2008): 379-428

“‘The Salt in a Merchant’s Letter’: The Culture of Julfan Correspondence in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean,” Journal of World History, 19, 2 (2008): 127-188

“The Circulation of Men and Credit: The Role of the Commenda and the Family Firm in Julfan Society,” The Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient, 50, 2 (2007): 124-171

“Social Capital, ‘Trust’ and the Role of Networks in Julfan Trade: Informal and Semi-formal Institutions at Work,” Journal of Global History 1, 3 (2006): 383-402

“Trade Diaspora versus Colonial State: Armenian Merchants, the East India Company and the High Court of Admiralty in London, 1748-1752,” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 13, 1 (2006): 37-100.

“Hndkahay vacharakanutean patmutyunits (XVIII d.skizb)” (From the History of Indo-Armenian Trade (Beginning of the Eighteenth Century)] in Patma-Banasirakan Handes 1, 171 (2006): 254-271

“The ‘Treason of the Intellectuals’: Reflections on the Uses of Revisionism and Nationalism in Armenian Historiography,” Armenian Forum 2, 4 (Spring 2002): 1-38

“Of Colonialism and Anthropology: An Interview with Talal Asad,” Conference: A Journal of Philosophy and Theory, Spring 1994

“A Debate on The Passion of Michel Foucault” (Interview with James Miller), Conference: A Journal of Philosophy and Theory, Spring 1993

“On the Two Marxisms: A Critical History,” La Revue d’etudes politique – McGill – Journal of Political Studies, Spring 1989



Interviews

AHR Conversation: How Size Matters: The Question of Scale in History