Colgate Professor Peter Balakian recently joined four other American writers on a U.S. State Department-sponsored trip to Istanbul, Turkey, and Yerevan, Armenia.
The trip, part of the University of Iowa International Writers Program, was a cultural exchange designed to encourage dialogue between the two countries as the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide draws near.
Peter Balakian
Balakian, Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in the Colgate department of English and the director of creative writing, is one of the preeminent experts on the Armenian genocide of 1915.
A November article in the Armenian Mirror-Spectator quotes Balakian about the opportunity during the trip to share his work in public with Turkish and Armenian writers: “It was an occasion of some symbolic significance and a small step toward more openness.”
Colgate will host two campus events in 2015 to commemorate the anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Balakian said, including a special film symposium on April 7 with Canadian director and Oscar nominee Atom Egoyan. There will also be an Armenian genocide, Yom Hashoah, and Rwandan genocide commemoration on April 14 with Colgate faculty who study the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide.
Balakian’s new books–Ozone Journal, poems, and Vise and Shadow: Essays on the Lyric Imagination, Poetry, Art, and Culture, will be published in March/April by the University of Chicago Press. The author of nine previous books and two translations, Balakian is a New York Times and national best seller.