Queering Form: A Virtual Reading
Note: Read IALA’s statement of support for LGBTQ+ students & Armenians affected by recent protests.
IALA proudly presents Nancy Agabian, the author of the recently published novel The Fear of Large and Small Nations; Dr. Rosie Vartyter Aroush, author of the work-in-progress book on LGBTQ Armenian experiences with identity, family, and community; and members of The Hye-Phen Collective: Kamee, Sara Abrams, and Ali Cat, who participated in the Gatherings zine, a series of conversations about solidarity among SWANA communities. Gabe Mugalian, queer Armenian-American writer, activist, and student of socio-cultural anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and JP Der Boghossian, founder of the Queer Armenian Library and host of the This Queer Book Saved My Life! podcast, will moderate the discussion and audience q and a.
These works highlight queer diaspora narratives as they relate not just to experiences of living within heteronormative communities, but also through the “queering” of dominant notions of identity, solidarity, and agency within and across communities. In discussing the queering of the form – in the sense of literary conventions and language – the writers and editors will discuss the way their works engage memory, represent conversations and spoken language, and ultimately bridge distances to enact agency as writers and community members.
In Nancy Agabian’s novel The Fear of Large and Small Nations, bisexual feminist writer and teacher Natalee — aka Na—seeks to reclaim her cultural roots in Armenia only to be confronted with the many contradictions of being a diasporan. Alongside a mosaic of artists, activists, intellectuals, and students facing restrictive gender politics, she sifts through her own traumatic history of genocide and survival, bears witness to post-Soviet echoes, all the while navigating the vulnerable borders that exist between nations and individuals. Written in short stories interspersed with intimate journal entries and blog posts, the fragmented narrative reveals what is lost in the tightrope passage between cultures ravaged by violence and colonialism—and what is gained when Na seizes control of her story, pulsating in its many shades and realities, daring to be witnessed.
Dr. Rosie Vartyter Aroush’s book investigates the impact of the Armenian family and diasporic community on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Armenians living in the United States. She depicts the struggles endured and strategies employed in the negotiation of LGBTQ Armenian identities and in coming out with family and community members. She examines family of origin relations in the multi-layers of coming out and the challenges to traditional notions of parenthood by queer Armenian families. Her project is based on over 50 interviews with LGBTQ Armenians in their 20s-60s from the United States and a decade of research and fieldwork.
Gatherings emerged from the 2020 Artsakh War and the relentless solidarity expressed between SWANA communities during and since that time. We hope to follow in a long line of activists, healers, writers, artists, and movement-organisers who have embraced the tension, braved the in-between, and reached across fault lines with the intention of showing up and taking care of each other. This project includes five conversations around the theme of SWANA solidarity – what it has looked like in the past and present, what it could look like in the future, and why it is so important.
Meet the Participants
Nancy Agabian is a writer, teacher and literary organizer who works in the intersections of queer, feminist, and Armenian identity. She is the author of The Fear of Large and Small Nations, a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, available from Nauset Press in May 2023. Her previous books include Princess Freak, a collection of poetry and performance art texts, and Me as her again: True Stories of an Armenian Daughter, a memoir honored as a Lambda Literary Award finalist for LGBT Nonfiction and shortlisted for a William Saroyan International Prize. In 2021 she was awarded Lambda Literary Foundation’s Jeanne Cordova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction. Her recent essay on the role of queer Armenians in the 2018 Revolution appears in the UT Press anthology We Are All Armenian. A longtime teacher of creative writing, she has facilitated workshops with multicultural groups in Los Angeles, women writers in Yerevan, SWANA writers online, queer writers at the Leslie Lohman Museum in NYC, and immigrants & first-generation writers in Queens, New York. A former member of the Hye-Phen collective and board of AGLA-NY, she currently serves on the board of the International Armenian Literary Alliance.
Rosie Vartyter Aroush has a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures with an emphasis in Armenian Studies and a concentration in Gender & Sexuality Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is currently working on her book about the experiences of LGBTQ+ Armenians in the diaspora with a focus on identity, family, and community. As a pioneer in bridging the fields of LGBTQ Studies & Armenian Studies, Dr. Aroush’s book eliminates the current gap and promotes the growing body of knowledge in Gender & Sexuality Studies by adding Armenians to the representation and marks the introduction of LGBTQ research within Armenian Studies. Additionally, she is a co-founder of VLUME, the largest digital library for Armenian eBooks and audiobooks.
Kamee arrives in the world today as an interdisciplinary artist, writer, producer, performer, director, organizer, caregiver, queerdo, waitress, and witch. Born into an Armenian family displaced from the SWANA region and grown in an immigrant suburb of Toronto, their work is steeped with relational and generative practices oriented towards ancestral reclamation, visionary fiction, and diasporic futurism. Kamee holds degrees in cinema, poli-sci, art therapy, and community/liberation psychology. They’re a Pushcart nominated writer and literary alumni at VONA and Banff Center for Arts, as well as a prize-winning theater maker whose plays were published in anthologies that received a Lambda award. The documentaries they’ve produced have been supported by Sundance, Visions du Réel, HotDocs, and Catapult. Their most recent film “Transmission” premiered at BFI FLARE and screened at multiple festivals.
Sara Abrams is a writer and editor who grew up in rural Oregon. After earning their degree in Gender, Sexuality, & Queer Studies at Portland State University, they worked as a Sexual Assault Victim’s Advocate, where they provided crisis support to survivors of sexual violence. They also played an active role in organizing for Palestinian equal rights through the groups SUPER and JVP. Today, they reside in Armenia with their dog.
Ali Cat is an artist and print maker living at the confluence of two rivers in Portland, Oregon. She produces her work under the name Entangled Roots Press. Her prints mingle the literal and metaphorical to illuminate and build relationships with the world around us. Relief, screen, and letterpress prints span from the tenderness of cultural reclamation to the beauty of people’s movements. Ali’s prints pull from ancestral herstories and push towards liberatory futures; entangling lessons from gardens, symbols in coffee cups, woven threads from Armenia and Euskal Herria, to the printed page.
Meet the Moderators
Gabe Mugalian studies socio-cultural anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, after transferring from Santa Monica College in 2021. He spent 2019 in Armenia working with human rights, cultural, and youth organizations. There he initiated and facilitated workshops on LGBTQ+ inclusion and has since sought ways to celebrate queerness in Armenian culture through art, dialogue, and advocacy. He is fascinated by the social and political functions of art and its role in creating discourse, which he has explored with Hye-Phen since 2019. His other interests include the anthropology of politics, democratic institutions, progressive economic systems, and cultures of waste. He was recently awarded two public service scholarships to study and intern in Washington, DC, where he worked with the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the United States. He currently lives in Oakland, CA with his two kitties.
J.P. Der Boghossian (he/they) is the founder of the Queer Armenian Library – the world’s first library devoted to literature by and about Queer Armenians. A 2022 Lambda Literary Fellow, he is at work on an essay collection titled A Home at the Beginning of the World. He hosts the podcasts This Queer Book Saved My Life! and 7 Minutes in Book Heaven. See the library at queerarmenianlibrary.com. Listen to the podcasts at thisqueerbook.com.