Armenian Women in Iran

Professors Houri Berberian and Talinn Grigor have written the first history of Armenian women in modern Iran. Their co-authored book, The Armenian Woman, Minoritarian Agency, and the Making of Iranian Modernity, 1860–1979, was published a few months ago, in 2025. We invite you to come and meet the authors at the Armenian Institute on 29 October 2025.

Foregrounding the work of Armenian women's organisations, they trace the relationships between doubly minoritised Armenian female subjects, Iran's centres of power, and the Irano-Armenian patriarchal institutions of church and political parties. Engaging with the themes of modernisation, nationalism, and feminism, this book makes a rich contribution to the history of women and minoritised peoples. Berberian and Grigor challenge conventional notions of "the archive" and transform silences and absences into audible and visual presences. This book provides a groundbreaking intervention in the history of women’s activism, Iran's history of modernisation, Armenian diasporic history, and Iranian and Armenian feminist historiography.

The Armenian Woman, Minoritarian Agency, and the Making of Iranian Modernity, 1860–1979. Stanford: Stanford University Press, Spring 2025.

About the speakers

Houri Berberian is Professor of History, Meghrouni Family Presidential Chair in Armenian Studies, and Director of the Center for Armenian Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on late nineteenth/early twentieth-century transimperial Armenian history, especially revolutionary movements and women and gender. Her books include Armenians and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911 (2001) and the multiple award-winning Roving Revolutionaries (2019).

Talinn Grigor is Professor of Art and Architectural History at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on 18th- to 20th-century architectural and art histories through postcolonial, race, feminist, and critical theories grounded in Iran, Armeno-Iran, Armenia, and Parsi India. Her books include the winner of the Saidi-Sirjani Book Award, The Persian Revival (2021), Contemporary Iranian Art (2014), and Building Iran (2009).