Prof. Sebouh Aslanian Office: Maxy 223 Tel: (509)522-4428 Office Hours: T/W/Th 1:00-2:00 pm Email:Elixe@aol.com

Power of Attorney to Cadiz, 1699

Julfan will Surat, 1682

Background and education: Born and raised in Ethiopia. Educated at McGill University (Montreal); the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research (New York); and Columbia University (New York). Fluent in Armenian and English; reading proficiency and conversational skills in Spanish, French, and Italian; Reading proficiency in Julfa dialect of mercantile Armenian (now an extinct dialect) and Classical Armenian; and elementary reading knowledge of Portuguese and Turkish.  

Ph.D. Dissertation : “From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: Circulation and the Global Trade Network of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa, Isfahan, 1605-1747,” Columbia University May 2007 (with distinction). Selected as the best dissertation in the humanities at Columbia University and representing Columbia at a national competition later in 2008. It is also currently under consideration for publication by the University of California Press (World History Series).

Research interests: historical sociology, world history, Islamic history, and the interface between economic and cultural history in the early modern period. Though my area of specialization is on Julfan Armenian merchants and their long distance trade in the early modern period, I am more broadly interested in the role of the Indian Ocean in World history and in theoretical issues that can be summed up under the rubric of “rescuing history from the nation.”

Current research projects : The first is a book manuscript with Houri Berberian on the trans-imperial activities of the Catholic Armenian family of the Scerimans/Shahrimanians from Julfa, Isafahan, who settled in Venice in 1697, provisionally entitled The Cosmopolitans: The House of Sceriman between Isfahan and Venice. The second project is an annotated translation of a rare mid-seventeenth century Armenian manual of trade and travel in the Indian Ocean.  

Future research projects : Writing a “connected history” of Armenian cultural and economic life in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, as well as in historicizing the notion of the ahistorical category of cosmopolitanism by working on the construction of what I call early modern “trans-imperial cosmopolitanism.” Also working on a comparative and World Historical essay on early Islamic conquests and Mongol globalization.

Courses at Whitman College for 2007-2008:

Fall 2007:

Islamic Civilization (History 127A)

Gunpowder Empires: Mughals, Safavids and Ottomans (History 223A)

The Indian Ocean in World History (History 380B)

Spring 2008:

Islamic Civilization II (History 128).

History of South Asia (History 223).

The Long History of Globalization and the Rise of the West (History 380A).

Scholarly Publications:  

Book:

Dispersion History and the Polycentric Nation: The Role of Simeon Yerevantsi’s Girk or Kochi Partavjar in the Armenian National Revival of the 18 th Century (Venice: Bibliotheque d’armenologie “Bazmavep,” 39 (2004).

Peer-reviewed articles and chapters in books:  

Entries for “Armenians in India” and “The Scerimans” [co-authored with Houri Berberian] for the Encyclopaedia Iranica (forthcoming online: http://www.iranica.com/newsite/).

“Some Notes on a Letter sent by an Armenian Priest in Bengal in 1727,” Between Paris and Fresno: Armenian Studies in Honor of Dickran Kouymjian, Barlow Der Mugrdechian, ed. (Costa Mesa: Mazda Press: 2008): pp. 379-428. (forthcoming).

“‘The Salt in a Merchant’s Letter’: The Culture of Julfan Correspondence in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean,” Journal of World History (Spring 2008) Forthcoming.

“The Circulation of Men and Credit: The Role of the Commenda and Family Firm in Julfan Society,” The Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 50, 2 (2007): 124-171.

“Social Capital, ‘Trust’ and the Role of Networks in Julfan Trade: Informal and Semiformal Institutions at Work,” Journal of Global History 1, 3 (2006): 383-402.

“Trade Diaspora versus Colonial State: Armenian Merchants, the East India Company and the High Court of Admiralty in London, 1748-1752,” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 13, 1 (2006): 37-100.

“Hndkahay vacharakanutean patmutyunits (XVIII d.skizb)” (From the History of Indo-Armenian Trade (Beginning of the Eighteenth Century)] in Patma-Banasirakan Handes 1, 171 (2006):254-271.

“The ‘Treason of the Intellectuals’? Reflections on the uses of Revisionism and Nationalism in Armenian Historiography,” Armenian Forum (Spring 2002): 1-37.

“Of Colonialism and Anthropology: An Interview with Talal Asad,” Conference: A Journal of Philosophy and Theory, Spring 1994.

“A Debate on The Passion of Michel Foucault” (Interview with James Miller), Conference: A Journal of Philosophy and Theory, Spring 1993.

“On the Two Marxisms: A Critical History,” La Revue d'etudes politique - McGill - Journal of Political Studies, Spring 1989.