PRESERVING ASSYRIA
Ever aware of the growing need to have a program dedicated to protecting the Assyrian identity, the Assyrian Studies Association created the Preserving Assyria program. Through this program, we’re actively working to promote and preserve the Assyrian identity through our four initiatives: Heritage Archive, Oral History, Giving Back, and Educational.
The Assyrian Studies Association generously thanks Roger Williams University Foundation to Promote Scholarship and Teaching for their support through student volunteers to help catalogue and digitize portions of this archival material from New Britain, CT and Massachusetts with Dr. Sargon Donabed.
Heritage Archives Initiative
We professionally restore, preserve, and revitalize Assyrian books, photographs, ephemera, poetry, typed or handwritten memoirs, letters,films,music, and historical documents. Our team also partners with leading academic institutions, scholars, and Assyrians in diaspora to create archival exhibitions, panel discussions,presentations, and publications.
From left to right: Fr. Paulos Be-Daro - Cal mawte d Gandi - Sefro suryoyo 1948, and Ashur S. Yousif (1858 - 1915) who was born in the town of Harput in the Ottoman Empire. Yousif was a professor, philosopher, writer, and author of the periodical Murshid Athuriyon, The Assyrian Guide.
Oral History Initiative
Our Oral History Initiative supports the process of interviewing Assyrians to encourage interviewees to construct a life narrative that enables them to contribute to the collective Assyrian memory, Assyrian identity, while preserving their voices for the historical record.
Assyrians shown in Dr. Ruth Kambar and Annie Elias's film project entitled, Assyrians in Motion, 1937. The project provides back stories to images contained in two archival films shot in 1937 documenting Assyrian refugees living in diaspora, having escaped genocide to establish a new home in the United States.
Giving Back Initiative
Our Giving Back Initiative provides grants to scholars and graduate students to conduct original research on the Assyrian people, history, and culture and offer grants to students to present their research at academic conferences. We are giving back to our Assyrian community through this initiative by providing grants to promote the academic study of the longue durée of the Assyro-Mesopotamian heritage.
Assyrian Studies Association's grant recipients. From Left to Right: Sanherib Ninos, Rachel Sarah Thomas, Ashor Sworesho, and Sarah Ego.
Educational Initiative
Our Educational Initiative partners with leading scholars, authors, and publishers from around the world to disseminate informal content related to the field of Assyrian Studies.
Images from Assyrian Studies Association virtual events.