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Khatchig Mouradian, Knowing about Genocide: Armenian Suffering and Epistemic Struggles. Joachim J Savelsberg, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 39, Issue 1, Spring 2025, Pages 119–120, https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcae049
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While it may have lost some of its bite, the century-old, state-sponsored, multimillion-dollar sprawling franchise of Armenian genocide denial maintains a grip on politics, law, culture, and education in Turkey, as well as a lingering impact on diplomacy, trade, and even domestic agendas in countries far beyond. Denial of this genocide, however, also continues to show an asymmetric, but relatively outsized resistance from descendants of the survivor community worldwide.
Necessarily, the study of this entrenched system of denial has engendered a multidisciplinary body of scholarship, rich in comparative insights, over the past four decades. Until now, however, no work had treated the Armenian genocide as a test case for a comprehensive sociological understanding of how knowledge emerges, takes shape, and is challenged despite overwhelming historical evidence. A confluence of factors have made this study a worthwhile endeavor—including the length of this epistemic struggle’s century-long arc, and the array of constitutive elements that make it so relevant, if not urgent—in an era of authoritarian populism and increasingly devastating onslaughts on knowledge mainly (but not only) from the political right around the globe.