The lecture will identify and assess domestic, interstate, and international opportunities and challenges for preserving Armenian heritage remnants in the Turkish Republic. It will then discuss three scenarios, detailing the agencies of key stakeholders, for the future of Turkey’s Armenian material past, making the case that a total erasure of all traces of Armenian heritage should not be accepted as an inevitable outcome.

Dr. Simon Maghakyan is a political scientist who researches heritage and security. He is the 20th Kazan Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies at California State University, Fresno, a Community Scholar at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford. Previously, he was affiliated with Tufts University, the University of Colorado, Denver, and Cranfield University, where he earned a PhD in Defense and Security, focusing on heritage crime. His practical experiences range from founding Heritage Intel consultancy to spearheading Colorado’s capitol genocide memorial. His publications include a Hyperallergic exposé of Nakhichevan’s cultural erasure, acclaimed as “groundbreaking” by Forbes and “rock-solid” by The Guardian. His analyses have been featured by the BBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Time. His forthcoming book, Sovereign Heritage Crime: Security, Autocracy, and the Material Past, is a critical heritage studies element of Cambridge University Press.