My book manuscript is now handed in! 2.5 years of work for a deep, wide-ranging revision of my 2019 volume Anatomy of a Rivalry are over… grateful to all those who read and commented on it 🙏🏻 I am exhausted but looking forward to new horizons, new themes and new collaborations!

In the Caucasus, philology has been years ahead of the decolonial turn. This is from @rrgould.bsky.social’s magisterial “Writers & Rebels. the Literature of Insurgency in the Caucasus” in 2016.

Just arrived - another important volume on the nature of Armenia’s defeat in 2020, put together by a collective of authors (A. Voskanyan, K.Harutiunian, V. Cheterian, M. Karapetyan and H. Hovhannisyan), and it comes with a great map as well.

For the last 18 months I’ve been pretty quiet (probably a minor mercy for some), as I’ve been completing the manuscript of the second edition of my book Anatomy of a Rivalry. It’s all but ready for submission, just a final read-through to go…

Yet what reciprocity means remains vague: “reciprocal benefits for international & intra-state connectivity for the Republic of Armenia.” This points to 2 areas of uncertainty: what, in the end, will be the modalities of transit across the TRIPP, & will these modalities be unique to that route?

It was a real treat to listen to @vhtroyansky.bsky.social speaking about his landmark study ‘Empire of Refugees’, published last year. His research makes a tremendous contribution to understanding the nexus between Russian & Ottoman imperial power & the mobility of Muslim populations. Recommended!