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Los Angeles to host Innovate Armenia 2017

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The USC Institute of Armenian Studies in Los Angeles will on September 23 host Innovate Armenia 2017, a day of discovery, technology, music, food, wine, chess and lively conversation headlined by a pair of celebrity-journalist brothers and two 2016 Pulitzer Prize winners, Asbarez reports.

The brothers are Washington Post columnist David Ignatius and Harvard Business Review editor Adi Ignatius.

The Pulitzer Prize winners are poet Peter Balakian, of Colgate University, and novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, a USC professor of English and American studies.

“We take global Armenian questions and explore them as part of big world issues,” says director Salpi Ghazarian. “INNOVATE ARMENIA is the platform where we make the best of scholarship accessible.”

The Armenian diaspora experience has lessons for everyone, according to David Kang, a featured speaker at Innovate Armenia 2016. A professor of international relations, business and East Asian languages, Kang heads USC’s Korean Studies Institute. His presentation last year focused on the fluidity of hybrid identities. “Armenians are going through very similar issues that Koreans have,” he said in his talk.

Last year’s festival, which focused on digital humanities, drew 3,000 attendees and 20,000 more watched online. This year’s program — with a focus on rethinking, relearning and reimagining identity, language, history and technology —is expected to draw even larger crowds.

Related links:

Asbarez. USC to Host 3rd Annual INNOVATE ARMENIA Festival

USC’s Innovate Armenia program tackles identity, digital humanities

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208180Innovate Armenia – where Heritage meets Innovation – will be held on the USC main campus, on Saturday, April 2. “Innovate Armenia” is a signature program of the University of Southern California Institute of Armenian Studies.

Innovate Armenia is a great convener – it brings together those who know and those who care, to drive a new kind of conversation about the Armenian world,” explained Salpi Ghazarian, director of the Institute of Armenian Studies.

The Innovate Armenia focus this year is two-fold: Identity and Digital Humanities. The theme of 21st century identity will be covered with fast-paced talks by nearly two dozen scholars and practitioners who will discuss global hybrid identities, post-Genocide identity issues for Armenians and Turks, and the Armenian identity past and future. These will take place in the USC Bovard Auditorium.

Outdoors, adjacent to the music stage, there will be 20 individuals or organizations from around the world who have taken the arts, literature and culture into the digital sphere, displaying their work. “We are calling them Digital Humanists. These are individuals who use technology to promote and share Armenian language, literature, art, cultural heritage digitally via various new and innovative platforms,” Ghazarian said. They will each present their work and interact with the public all day. In addition, each will present a short TED-style talk in USC’s Taper Auditorium, throughout the day, to discuss their vision and the platforms they have created for public use.

The nearly 2,000 people who attended Innovate Armenia in 2015 also enjoyed a full day’s concert on the outdoor music stage. This year, too, several new artists, rarely heard in the U.S., will perform throughout the day.

And alongside these stages, a unique photo exhibition entitled “Sum of Us,” will feature photographers from Yerevan, New York, and Los Angeles, each of whom has captured a slice of Armenian identity.