This is the second annual Summer School series.
Friday, July 24, 2026 to Monday, July 27, 2026
Time to be announced
The Armenian Genocide Research Program (AGRP) of the Promise Armenian Institute at UCLA, in collaboration with the International Hellenic University's School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Economics, presents a five-day interdisciplinary Summer School bringing together leading scholars in genocide studies, human rights, and transitional justice. Held at St. George Peristereota in the scenic region of Naoussa, Greece, the program offers an intensive academic experience for researchers, students, and practitioners working at the intersection of historical atrocity, international law, and memory.
Over the course of the week, participants will engage with expert faculty in an interdisciplinary introduction to the major fields shaping contemporary genocide studies, including the historiography of genocide and human rights, international humanitarian law, conflict resolution and transitional justice, and memory studies.
The distinctive contribution of the Summer School, however, is not simply that it brings together a wide range of historical experiences of collective violence. Rather, it seeks to reconceptualize the Eastern Mediterranean as a single analytical space, inviting participants to think across cases that have traditionally been studied in isolation.
While the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian genocides remain central reference points, the program broadens the analytical lens by incorporating the Nakba, the ongoing mass atrocities in Gaza, and the experiences of Kurdish communities across the region. Rather than treating these histories as separate national or ethnic narratives, the Summer School explores them within a common comparative framework examining genocide, mass atrocities, forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, and other forms of collective violence across the wider geography once governed by the Ottoman Empire.
By bringing these different experiences into conversation with one another, the program seeks to transcend conventional historiographical boundaries and overcome the artificial divisions that have long characterized scholarship on the region. We hope that this holistic, comparative perspective will foster new ways of understanding the Eastern Mediterranean's intertwined histories while opening fresh perspectives on human rights, democratization, transitional justice, and historical reconciliation.
The Summer School combines morning and afternoon lectures with extended discussion sessions, fostering close dialogue between faculty and participants in an intimate residential setting. The full program, to be published shortly, will further demonstrate the breadth and originality of this intellectual approach.
Sponsor(s): Armenian Genocide Research Program, PAI, St. George Peristereota Research Centre, Municipality of Heroic Town of Naoussa, Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs and Sports, General Secretariat for Religious Affairs, Euxeinos Association of Thessaloniki