Tsolin Nalbantian (MA NYU, 2003; PhD Columbia, 2011) is an Associate Professor of Modern Middle East History. She focuses on diasporas, minorities, and the modern political and social history of Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and the Caucasus.

More information about Tsolin Nalbantian

Profile

My work rethinks nation-state-centric and region-centric views of the modern Middle East through the lens of so-called “minorities” and diasporas. Concretely, I am putting histories involving Armenians into dialogue with broader national communities, bridging and expanding Middle Eastern History, Diaspora Studies, the History of Caucasus, and Area Studies.

My monograph, Armenians Beyond Diaspora: Making Lebanon Their Own (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), is a post-Genocide Armenian history of – principally – power, renewal and presence, rather than one of loss and absence. Practicing Sectarianism Archival and Ethnographic Interventions on Lebanon (Stanford University Press, 2022), a volume I co-edited with Lara Deeb and Nadya Sbaiti, brings together historians and anthropologists who see sectarianism as contingent and constructed, and argues that sectarianism can only be understood if we take it seriously as an imaginative and contradictory practice. The Armenian Diaspora and Stateless Power: Collective Identity in the Transnational 20th Century (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, 2023), a volume I co-edited with Talar Chahinian and Sossie Kasbarian, is an exciting contribution to the study of not only the modern Armenian diaspora, but also to the field of Diaspora Studies.

I am also currently the book editor for the Journal for the Society of Armenian Studies, co-editor of the Critical, Connected Histories book series for Leiden University Press, and co-convener of the Histories, Connected, interfaculty research network.

Supervision

My PhD promotion (ius promovendi conferred) and supervision focus primarily on topics relating to the political, social, and cultural histories of communities in the Middle East and the Caucasus in the 19th-20th centuries. I also welcome projects that deal with identity, national politics, diaspora, and minorities, and migration and displacement in the region more generally.

Key Publications

Monographs and edited volumes

2023    Volume co-editor, Diaspora and ‘Stateless Power’: The Armenian Experience through the Transnational 20^th Century, together with Talar Chahinian and Sossie Kasbarian (I.B. Tauris/Bloomsbury)

2022    Volume co-editor, Practicing Sectarianism: Ethnographic and Archival Interventions on Lebanon, together Lara Deeb and Nadya Sbaiti (Stanford University Press, 2022).

2020    Armenians Beyond Diaspora: How They Made Lebanon Their Own (Edinburgh University Press).

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles and Chapters

In progress        “Lebanonizing Armenians: the 1958 Crisis,” in The Bloomsbury Handbook on Armenian Studies, edited by Bedross Der Matossian, Christina Maranci, and Barlow Der Mugrechian (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, forthcoming).

In progress        “De-Nationalizing the Middle East: The Armenian Case,” in Handbook of Middle Eastern and North African Migration Studies, edited by Andrew Arsan and Akram Khater (IB Tauris, Bloomsbury, forthcoming).

2024    “Circulation, Correspondences, Capital, and Campaigning: The Fallout from the 1956 Armenian Church Election,” in More than Homesickness. Expatriated Minorities: Repatriating Money, Commodities and People in the Mediterranean (1492-1956), edited by José Alberto Tavim and Hugo Martins (University of Évora- CIDHEUS).

2023    “In Lieu of an Introduction,” Co-written with Talar Chahinian and Sossie Kasbarian. In The Armenian Diaspora and Stateless Power: Collective Identity in the Transnational 20th Century, edited by Talar Chahinian, Sossie Kasbarian, and Tsolin Nalbantian, 1-23. IB Tauris/Bloomsbury.

2022    “A ‘Little Armenia’ in the Caribbean”: The Armenian Heritage Cruise as a Simulacrum,” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 22, no.2: 198-218.

2022    “Practicing Sectarianism in Lebanon and Beyond,” Introduction co-written with Lara Deeb and Nadya Sbaiti. In Practicing Sectarianism: Ethnographic and Archival Interventions on Lebanon, edited by Lara Deeb, Tsolin Nalbantian, and Nadya Sbaiti, 1-13. Stanford University Press.

2022    “From Murder in New York to Salvation from Beirut: Armenian Intra-Sectarianism.” In Practicing Sectarianism: Ethnographic and Archival Interventions on Lebanon, edited by Lara Deeb, Tsolin Nalbantian, and Nadya Sbaiti, 116-137. Stanford University Press.

2018    “Armenians in Lebanon: Becoming Local in the Levant,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 50, no.4: 773–77.

2018    “Armenians in the Middle East,” in Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East, Routledge, pp. 272-286.

2013    “Articulating Power through the Parochial” Mashriq & Mahjar 1, no.2: 41-72.

2013    “Going Beyond Overlooked Populations in Lebanese Historiography: The Armenian Case,” History Compass 11, 10: 821-832.

Translations

Dove in Free Flight a collection of poetry by Faraj Bayraqdar, translator from Arabic to English as part of the New York Translation Collective (Brooklyn: UpSet Press, 2021 and University of Arkansas Press, 2021).

Employment, grants and awards

Before being employed at Leiden, I was lecturer of Middle East History at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and taught Arabic at Columbia University. In 2019, I was appointed the Dumanian Visiting Professorship of Armenian Studies at the University of Chicago.

• Aspasia Grant, NWO
• Leiden Teachers’ Academy Fellow: “Making Education ‘Public’: How to Transfer Research and Academic Skills to the Digital Domain”
• Comenius Teaching Fellow NRO Grant: “Bridging the Gap Between Classroom and Society: Using Wikipedia to Make Students Public Actors”
• Leiden University Global Interactions Seed Grant, together with Irial Glynn (Leiden University)
• NWO VENI Grant: “Connecting Citizens: The Fused Identities of Nusaybin, Turkey and Qamishle, Syria”
• Marie Curie (CIG) Grant, European Commission: “Centering the Margins”
• Zohrab Faculty Fellowship, Columbia University
• Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Summer Fellowship, Columbia University
• Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, Wenner-Gren Foundation
• FLAS Dissertation Fellowship in Arabic, Columbia University
• Fulbright-Hays Fellowship (Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad), US Department of Education
• FLAS Fellowship in Arabic, New York University
• Graduate Student Fellowship, New York University
• Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA), Cairo, Egypt