The Armenian Weekly, Public Radio of Armenia and World News Report reported that Clark University has granted its second Ph.D. in Armenian genocide studies to Ümit Kurt.

Here is an excerpt:

“Just days before the world marked the 101st remembrance of the Armenian Genocide, the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University conferred its second Ph.D. in Armenian Genocide Studies.

“On April 19, Ümit Kurt successfully defended his dissertation,‘Destruction of Aintab Armenians and Emergence of the New Wealthy Class: Plunder of Armenian Wealth in Aintab (1890s–1920s).’ In its pages, he produces a microhistory of the Armenians in the city of Aintab, located on the Syrian border in southeast Turkey, before, during, and after the genocide. Elucidating the economic dimensions of the genocide, Kurt describes how the Turks used the Abandoned Properties Laws to confiscate Armenian property in Aintab.

“Among his many fellowships, speaking engagements and honors, Kurt was the Agnes Manoogian Hausrath fellow at Clark, and an Armenian Studies Scholarship from the Gulbenkian Foundation also supported his research. His research and teaching — he was a lecturer at Sabanci University in Istanbul as well as research fellow at Fresno State University — also has earned him a post-doctoral fellowship beginning in September at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.”