The Twain Shall Meet: Armenian-American Images from the Civil War Era
Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center
New York, NY 10016
Lecture description: This talk will explore the life and work of the first Armenian New Yorker, Christopher Oscanyan. In particular, we will look at the images he produced of Ottoman Turks, Armenians, and others during the Civil War era (1850s-1870s). We will see how Oscanyan used his images to portray a vision of democratic ideals and political equality between Ottomans and Americans. By comparing Oscanyan’s work to that of major American cultural and political figures such as P.T. Barnum, Mark Twain, Frederick Douglass, and others, we will think about how Oscanyan’s efforts both used and subverted contemporary practices to depict an equitable future between the U.S. and the Middle East.
Bio of speaker: Dr. Nora Lessersohn is the Nikit and Eleanora Ordjanian Visiting Professor of Armenian Studies in the Department of MESAAS at Columbia University. She is a historian of the Armenian-American diaspora and U.S.-Middle East relations, broadly conceived. She earned her PhD in History from University College London in 2023, supported by a Calouste Gulbenkian Armenian Studies Scholarship. In 2021-22, she was a Predoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Museum of American History. She earned her AB in the Study of Religion at Harvard College and her AM in Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, where she was also a Visiting Fellow in 2023-2024. Dr. Lessersohn has published articles on the memoir of her great-grandfather, Hovhannes Cherishian, and is now preparing a manuscript on Chistopher Oscanyan and Ottoman-American cultural diplomacy across the 19th century (and especially in Civil War era New York City).
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