A Nation's Voice in a Woman's Words: Female/Feminist Armenian Playwriting in the Western Diaspora

Playwriting by Armenian women is at an early stage of definition and scrutiny. Armenian feminism of the late 19th century was interrupted by the Armenian genocide of 1914-18. In its aftermath, Diasporan Armenian scholarship has been preoccupied with more 'urgent' themes relating to universal recognition of the genocide. The concerns of women of the diaspora have been treated as a destabilizing threat to an already fragile Armenian identity. This PhD will seek to define female/feminist Armenian playwriting, its aesthetics and recurrent themes, and situate it within a broader framework of intersectional feminism.
The creative element will comprise two plays which will articulate tensions between self-actualization of the Armenian female and regeneration of a decimated people. The critical component will seek parallels in the intersection of feminism and ethnicity in the writings of women from other minority cultures and how legacies of trauma and imperialism impacts this work.