Remnants

Elyse Semerdjian is the Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Chair of Armenian Genocide Studies at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. She is the author of "Off the Straight Path": Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo (2008).

• 1. Zabel's Pen: Gender, Body Snatching, and the Armenian Genocide2. Weaponizing Shame: Dis-memberment of the Armenian Collective Body3. Rescuing "Kittens" in the Desert: The Armenian Humanitarian Relief Effort4. Recovering Survivors in Aleppo, Replanting Bodies in Syria's Armenian Colonies5. "Changelings" and "Halflings": Finding the Armenian Buried inside the Islamized Child6. Aurora's Body, Humanitarianism, and the Pornography of Suffering7. What Lies beneath Grandma's Tattoos? Traumatic Memories of Inked Skin8. Wounded Whiteness: Branded Captives from the Old West to the Ottoman East9. Removing the "Brand of Shame," Rehabilitating Armenian Skin10. Counternarratives of Tribal Tattoos and Survivor Agency11. If These Bones Could Speak: Early Armenian Pilgrimages to Dayr al-Zur12. Feeling Their Way through the Desert: Affective Itineraries of "Non-Sites of Memory"13. Bone Memory: Community, Ritual, and Memory Work in the Syrian Desert

"Remnants is a rich cultural history of the Armenian Genocide and a powerful investigation of patriarchal assault on the female body. An original work with broad meaning for all histories of mass violence and genocide, and their traumatic aftermaths."—Peter Balakian, author of Black Dog of Fate "Elyse Semerdjian has authored a brilliant book. Remnants is at once powerful, moving, engaging, and convincing. Its turn to bodies and voices, remnants and fragments—away from the traditional archive—restores the stories of those most silenced and forgotten, and shows how gender is pivotal to genocidal thinking. A real tour de force."—Beth Baron, author of The Orphan Scandal "Remnants is the book we've all been waiting for—breathtaking plot, methodological novelty without any accompanying conceit, theoretically and factually grounded. Elyse Semerdjian's work will prove regenerative in the best possible way."—Lerna Ekmekcioglu, author of Recovering Armenia "A very ethical book, demonstrating to all of us how one can recover a violent past with professionalism and grace instead of rhetoric and partisanship. Remnants recovers and gives agency to women who were silenced in history."—Fatma Muge Gocek author of Denial of Violence