Dr. Arman Grigorian has been appointed the Nikit and Eleanora Ordjanian Visiting Professor of Armenian Studies at Columbia University for the Spring 2012 semester, when he will teach a course entitled Politics of Post Soviet Armenia.
According to The Armenian Reporter, the course will examine the opposing views on some of the most central events and issues that have dominated the conversation in and about modern Armenia while attempting to bring to bear on the topics covered modern theories and debates in the social sciences about ethnic conflict, nationalism, democracy, development, etc.
Dr. Grigorian previously taught the course during Spring 2011 semester. Following 2008 presidential elections in Armenia, he was a U.S. spokesman for the opposition candidate and former president Levon Ter-Petrossian, for whose administration he was an expert on Turkey from 1991 to 1993 .
Dr. Grigorian received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 2008, where he defended his dissertation on the role of third parties in state-minority conflicts. He is currently a visiting professor of international relations at Lehigh University and is working on a book which examines the causes of increased probability of mass violence against minorities during interstate wars. He has published articles in the International Studies Quarterly and Ethnopolitics.
