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Peter Balakian is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Chair in the humanities in the Department of English. He was the first director of the Center for Ethics and World Societies. His book Ozone Journal won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. I first met Elie Wiesel when my friend and English department colleague Terrence […]

With a pair of new books out in 2015 — one a collection of his essays; the other, new poems — poet and English professor Peter Balakian unpacks, among other things, how language can, in his words, “ingest” the violence of history. The author of the New York Times–bestselling The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and […]

Peter Balakian, the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in humanities, professor of English, and director of creative writing at �°IJʿ������, has won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Ozone Journal, his collection of poems published last year by University of Chicago Press. In making the announcement, the Pulitzer committee cited the collection’s […]

As the world commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide today, �°IJʿ������ professor Peter Balakian continues to press the U.S. government to join a growing number of nations and dignitaries, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Pope Francis, to publicly denounce and formally brand the killings as genocide. Balakian, a descendant of survivors of […]

On April 24, 1915, the arrests of 250 cultural leaders in Constantinople/Istanbul set in motion the mass-killing of more than a million Armenians in Turkey. The Armenian genocide became the template for genocide in the 20th century. Peter Balakian, �°IJʿ������’s Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the humanities, a leading international expert on the subject, has […]

�°IJʿ������ professor Peter Balakian’s essay about the villa where Nazi SS leaders made the plan to annihilate the Jews of Europe was published this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The essay comes as events are scheduled around the world in observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is January 27. That day recognizes the […]

As a young student, �°IJʿ������ professor Peter Balakian’s curiosity about his family roots led him on a personal and intellectual journey. Balakian has spent decades unraveling his Armenian ancestry and, in the process, educating the world about the atrocities of the Armenian genocide. Now, the Armenian government is recognizing Balakian, the Constance H. and […]