At Fresno State, a new course offered this Spring, Armenian Studies 120T-“Gender and the Armenian Genocide,” offers students a unique lens to the Armenian Genocide through a gendered approach. Moving beyond traditional narratives centered solely on political decisions and state responsibility, the course foregrounds the voices of women, illuminating often overlooked perspectives and offering a distinctive yet profoundly insightful under-standing of the Genocide.
For Prof. Anna Aleksanyan, Kazan Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies, the course is both academic and deeply personal. Her connection to the subject is rooted in family history. From her mother’s side, she descends from survivors of Mush, including a great-great-grandmother whose story profoundly shaped her scholarly path. After the male members of her family were killed, her ancestor gathered women and children, traveled by night to reach the Caucasian front, and endured unimaginable hardship while saving lives and rebuilding as a refugee.
“I realized that I was failing women by not studying that topic,” she explained, reflecting on her early hesitation to confront the trauma embedded in women’s experiences.
Ultimately, this realization led her to pursue a Ph.D. abroad and dedicate her scholarship to restoring women’s voices within genocide studies.
At its core, the course seeks to humanize and personalize the Armenian Genocide. Rather than focusing exclusively on statistics or international recognition, Prof. Aleksanyan emphasizes names, faces, and individual stories. “When you make the Genocide about people and give names and faces to the survivors, it’s different,” she noted.
For Armenian-American students, especially those in Fresno’s vibrant Armenian community, the course fosters a deeper understanding of their heritage and the resilience that allowed a nation of refugees and orphans to rebuild. For non-Armenian students, it underscores that genocide is not an isolated historical event, but a recurring global reality.
The course differs significantly from more traditional approaches to teaching the Genocide.
While many genocide courses focus on state policy, diplomatic history, and recognition debates, this course examines how gender shaped both the implementation of violence and the survival of communities.
It breaks taboos by confronting topics often mentioned but rarely explored in depth, including sexual violence as a deliberate tool of genocide.
The course also resonates powerfully in today’s context. With the recent ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Artsakh, Prof. Aleksanyan stresses that genocide studies remain urgent and necessary.
The Armenian Genocide, one of the most studied genocides after the Holocaust, provides critical insights for comparative genocide scholarship and contemporary prevention efforts.
By confronting difficult histories, students step outside of denial and develop a deeper awareness of global patterns of violence and resilience.
A survey taken by students enrolled reflected the students’ impressions of the class.
Anahid Valencia, Vice Pres-ident of the Armenian Stu-dents Organization, enrolled in Armenian Studies 120T because of her personal connection to the history.
“I come from Armenian Genocide survivors, so when I saw a class dedicated specifically to the Genocide, I knew I wanted to take it,” she shared, adding that learning from a Visiting Professor offered a new perspective on a history she grew up discussing.
Valencia also emphasized how the gendered lens expanded her understanding. “Learning how gender shaped both perpetrators and victims was very interesting,” she said, noting that female experiences are often under-discussed.
Valencia stated that in a city like Fresno, with such a large Armenian community, under-standing this history is essential. “This is not just history,” she added. “It’s still reality.”
Mary Iskenyan enrolled in the course to deepen her understanding of the Armenian Genocide and to learn from a Visiting Professor within the Armenian Studies Program.
She shared that the course reinforced her belief that gender played a deliberate role in the Genocide, explaining that separating men and women was “also a psychological strategy.” Iskenyan noted that the course offers a deeper and more complete understanding than what many grow up hearing at home.
Lori Yetter enrolled in the course to learn more about her own Armenian history. She found the discussion of women and children especially impactful, sharing that learning about their experiences helped her really understand what not only the men went through, but what Armenian women and children had to endure.
Her lasting takeaway from the course is the resilience of Armenians, including her own grandfather’s family, who over-came immense suffering to build a future for the next generation.
Across responses, recurring themes emerged: the emotional weight of memoirs, the power of examining history through individual stories, and the im-portance of understanding how gender shaped both suffering and survival.
“Gender and the Armenian Genocide” is far more than an upper-division elective. It is an exploration of memory, trauma, courage, and agency – one that challenges students to confront painful histories while recognizing the extraordinary resilience that follows catastrophe.