[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] Another Diaspora's Fate

I came across an interested article hosted at the Armenian General Benevolent Union: "Armenian Demography, the Homeland, and the Diaspora: Trends and Consequences," by one Stephan H. Astourian. This paper has the problems that manifest themselves in all papers on a particular population group written by strong supporters of said group--not only are "we"
unique, "we" are particularly blessed with some set of skills or another, "we" have historical enemies who must be dealt with, "we" have the potential to mobilize behind the goal of creating a self-contained population if only we gather in everyone at the margins, et cetera. It at least manages to avoid the most blatant forms of this boosterism, though, and is factually quite correct--it's only the policy implications which are doubtful.

Astourian's article explores the history of the Armenian diaspora over the 20th century, marked initially by the Turkish genocide and a subsequent global diaspora (throughout the Middle East, to France and western Europe, to the United States), the waves of emigration within the former Soviet Union produced by the Soviet collapse, and the rapid decline in the population of the Armenian nation-state, from three-and-a-quarter million in 1989 to barely two million now. The net result is that the trend towards the concentration of the Armenian population within the frontiers of the Armenian republic--moving upwards from one-third of the total to almost one-half by 1989--has been utterly reversed as Armenians leave their titular homeland by the hundreds of thousands. Russia's Armenian population has grown particularly to almost two million people, but the European and American segments of the diaspora have also grown sharply despite assimilation.

I can't help but wonder at the fact that the dispersal of the Armenian diaspora is quite different from the growing concentration of the Jewish diaspora, that where Armenia's population as a share of the Armenian diaspora is declining sharply Israel's population as a share of the Jewish diaspora is growing, that the Armenian and Jewish diasporas are responding--at least in crude demographic terms--quite differently to globalization's potentials and problems.

So far

I've gained five pounds and now weigh, well, too much. I'll definitely have to take up the gym again, with a particular religious fervour.

I'm looking forward to the proposed French-language coffeehouse Sunday evening. Has a place been set up?

Grad school looks to be going fine. With the arrival of packages from Memorial and Western, I now have paper forms for three universities and the necessary downloadable documents for the others (and those three universities, of course); I'm more worried about applying for McGill since their application system is purely on-line, but it shouldn't be too bad. I'll be spending this weekend working on the forms, and working on the introduction for my Honours essay--God knows I need to finish that at last. Still, plenty of time.

One observation: At Western Ontario and Queen's, at least, it's apparently preferred that if you go for a master's degree you should opt for the MA path that's entirely coursework, not the MA path that includes the writing of the thesis. I've heard that taking the coursework MA path can limit your chances for further advancement in the academic community generally, but then at those two institutions, at least, you can proceed directly to your doctoral degree where you can write a thesis. This path has the advantage--intended, of course--of allowing you to concentrate on coursework and not get bogged down in writing a thesis, which attracts me. I think I'll research the matter latter, post-submission.

The New York Times on Iranian Religion

Political Fervor of Iranian Clerics Begins to Ebb
By NAZILA FATHI

QUM, Iran — While recent pro-democracy demonstrations on Iranian campuses have attracted widespread attention, a potentially more explosive movement has quietly been taking shape here in one of the leading religious centers of the Islamic world. The Shiite clergy who a generation ago called for the establishment of a fundamentalist, religious government are having second thoughts. Religion, many are now saying, belongs in the mosque.

( Read more... )

Grad School Entrance Requirements

Hi!

This post is much more for my purposes than any of my readers', though if anyone's interested in applying for a Master's degree at any of the six below schools they could find this useful.

( See the details of my applications! )

There. This looks quite doable, doesn't it?

Darn

Guess I won't be going to the undergraduate English conference at Memorial after all:

Dear Randy,

Thank you so much for submitting a paper for the undergraduate
conference this year. Your paper was fascinating, and I enjoyed reading it very much. This year we had a number of excellent submissions, and we would have liked to send all of you -- your papers were well-written and we know you would be excellent ambassadors for UPEI. Unfortunately, because this year's conference is in Newfoundland, we are only able to send one academic paper, and so we had to make a very difficult choice. I am sorry to say that your paper was not selected, in spite of its fine quality. However, I would encourage you to submit a paper for next year's conference if you are still at UPEI.

Thank you again for your interest and enthusiasm.

Meyers-Briggs Test

Thursday, in my English seminar course, we got the results back of the Meyers-Briggs test we'd taken and an overview of its history and meaning. Below are my class notes:

( You've always wanted to know about the Meyers-Briggs test, haven't you? )

I'm an INTJ

My Meyers-Briggs test revealed that I'm an INTJ-type personality: Introverted (no surprise), Intuitive (again, no shocker), Thinker (sense a pattern?), and Judger. The last bit is a bit of a surprise, since the first time I took the test I tested a Perceiver. But then, that test was an on-line quiz not necessarily scientifically-based, and the next time that I took the quiz I tested an INTJ.

	October 2002	January 2003
E vs I	35 (I)	23 (I)
S vs N	7 (N)	13 (N)
T vs F	17 (T)	43 (T)
J vs P	23 (J)	11 (J)

So, there are a few conclusions which can be drawn from these two tests:

• I've become rather less introverted, which is no surprise and a good thing.


• I'm still intuitive-oriented, though less so than before.


• I'm definitely a thinker type.


• I seem to be becoming more spontaneous and flexible, which meets my experiences.

Interesting enough.

Filling in my graduate school applications is going well, if anyone's wondering.

But still, there's something: lingering disappointment about the undergraduate conference, perhaps, or a more profound concern about the future of my life? How did it go the lyrics go to David Bowie's "Thursday's Child"? Ah, yes:

all of my life i've tried so hard
doing my best with what i had
nothing much happened all the same

soemthing about me stood apart
a whisper of hope that seemed to fail
maybe i'm born out of my time
breaking my life in two