Returning to the conversation, AI's librarian Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian continues the discussion with Dr. Shushan Karapetian, Deputy Director of University of Southern California's Institute of Armenian Studies, to confront the realities of preserving heritage and native languages amongst bi-lingual schools across Los Angeles. The pair reflect on these newfound methods, and idealise environments that create space and encouragement for more than one language.
Shushan Karapetian is Deputy Director of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, where she leads the Institute’s research and scholarship initiatives, deepening the integration with entities both on and off campus and expanding the scope of academic programming. She received a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from UCLA in 2014, where she taught Armenian Studies courses for ten years. Her dissertation, “‘How Do I Teach My Kids My Broken Armenian?’: A Study of Eastern Armenian Heritage Language Speakers in Los Angeles,” received the Society for Armenian Studies Distinguished Dissertation Award in 2015. In 2018, she was the recipient of the Russ Campbell Young Scholar Award in recognition of outstanding scholarship in heritage language research. She also serves as associate director of the National Heritage Language Resource Center at UCLA. Shushan researches, teaches, and writes about the Armenian experience, particularly focusing on competing ideologies at the intersection of language and the construction of transnational identity.
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