Professor Khachig Tölölyan
Pioneer of Diaspora Studies
Across a career spanning five decades, Professor Tölölyan transformed diaspora into a major interdisciplinary field, developing influential frameworks for understanding dispersion, migration, statelessness, transnationalism, homeland relations, and belonging. As the founder and longtime editor of Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, he created a vital forum for the emerging field, while his landmark scholarship challenged nation-state-centered approaches to identity and political belonging. Deeply informed by the Armenian experience, his work demonstrates how Armenian Studies can generate ideas of broad global significance—an intellectual legacy he will share at USC through lectures, workshops, and public conversations.
Professor Emeritus at Wesleyan University, Tölölyan taught literature, comparative literature, and critical and cultural theory for nearly five decades.
Dr. Hrach Martirosyan
Leading Contemporary Armenian Linguist
Dr. Martirosyan is internationally recognized for his pioneering research on the Armenian language within the Indo-European family. His Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon (Brill, c. 1000 pp.) is a landmark reference in the field. Over his distinguished career, he has taught and conducted research at institutions including UCLA, Leiden University, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and has lectured widely in Europe, Asia, and the United States.
