by Christina DiFabio
Professor Lori Khatchadourian graduated from IPCAA in 2008, with her dissertation Social Logics Under Empire: The Armenian “Highland Strategy” and Achaemenid Rule, CA 600-300 BC. She is now an assistant professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. I had the opportunity to communicate with Prof. Khatchadourian to discuss her responsibilities at her current position as well as her IPCAA experience.
She is a multi-faceted scholar; her ongoing research in Armenia continues to explore the intersection of materiality and imperialism, even as her attention has recently turned to heritage management and the relationship between archaeology and economic development. She has valuable advice to current IPCAA students, especially concerning the transition from graduate school to academia. Please read the full Q&A interview below. We look forward to following Prof. Khatchadourian’s exciting work!
CD: Please describe your current position. What is your university/college/institution like? What are your responsibilities?
LK: I am an assistant professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. I am also a member of several “Fields”, or subject areas, which Cornell uses to organize graduate study, including the Fields of Archaeology, Anthropology, Classics, and Near Eastern Studies. Field membership allows me to help shape graduate student training across departments. I am particularly involved in teaching and advising graduate students in the Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies. Within my departmental home of Near Eastern Studies, my responsibilities include offering lecture courses and seminars for undergraduates, advancing my research, advising students, and helping to strengthen the department. I also co-direct Cornell’s Landscapes and Objects Laboratory with Adam T. Smith. As a large university, Cornell offers exciting resources, both material and intellectual, for archaeological research in both its scientific and humanistic dimensions.
CD: Can you tell me more about the Landscapes and Objects Laboratory as an educational resource at Cornell?
LK: The Landscapes and Objects Laboratory (LOL) is a space for research and teaching that is dedicated to the analysis and interpretation of archaeological materials. Our projects focus on exploring the role of the material world in human social life, from landscapes and places to assemblages and single artifacts. Resources in the lab include software for spatial analysis, a portable XRF, 3D scanner, and a variety of field equipment. The LOL is also a hub for archaeology-related activities on Cornell’s campus, and a place for graduate students, including MA and PhD students, to work side by side (much like the Kelsey!). Lastly, the lab functions as a teaching space for small seminars and lab-based courses, including my own “Ceramic Analysis for Archaeology.”
CD: What were you doing before you entered this position? What other opportunities did you have between graduating and taking this job (e.g. postdocs, visiting positions, lectureships)?
LK: Approximately two years after defending my dissertation, I took up a position as Hirsch Post-Doctoral Fellow in Archaeology and Visiting Professor in Anthropology at Cornell. During the three semesters that I held this postdoctoral fellowship, I had the opportunity to develop introductory and advanced courses in archaeology and begin to reformulate my dissertation into a book project.
CD: What was your transition like from IPCAA student and your past positions to your current position?
LK: It is only in hindsight that I fully understand how precious the final years of graduate school were, when research, reading, and writing were the main foci of my attention. One of the most significant aspects of the transition to a tenure-track position is the exponential increase in responsibilities for efforts that are not directly related to research, whether teaching, advising, or institution building. These too are rewarding aspects of the academic profession. But incorporating them into one’s work life while also maintaining a program of research and writing requires a whole new approach to time management.
A second notable aspect of the shift to a tenure-track position was what can be described as a feeling of liberation from my own concerns about disciplinary boundaries. Since the geographic areas of my research—the Caucasus, eastern Anatolia, Eurasia and Iran—reside at the very margins of the Classical world, I was often burdened in graduate school with questions of disciplinary belonging. Such burdens have since lifted. This is not only because I work in a department centered on the Near East, but also because there is no longer time for such worries! One salutary consequence of the pressures of a tenure-track job is that you have to just ‘get on with it’, and enjoy time for research whenever you can find it, without being distracted by things that probably don’t matter as much as you once thought, or that you cannot control. Many of the anxieties of graduate school fall by the wayside (as new ones take their place!).
CD: Which of the skills or content that you learned in IPCAA have been most valuable to you in your career? Which have you used the least?
LK: All of the seminars that I took while at IPCAA honed my skills in expository writing and critical thinking, which are by far the most valuable tools of the profession. I also benefited from the technical skills gained through a certificate in spatial analysis. Working as a teaching assistant provided a strong foundation of pedagogical experience. In terms of content, the courses whose topics and readings continue to play a large role in my research and teaching were those strongly focused on archaeological and anthropological thought and the art and archaeology of Iran. I have had little occasion to make use of some of the content I learned for the qualifying exams (memorable though the late nights are, studying images for the slide IDs did not prove particularly useful to me over the long term). My teaching and research do not require that I make use of Greek or Latin, but I am very happy for the time I spent learning French and German for reading knowledge.
CD: If you could change one thing about your time in IPCAA or your career up to this point, what would you change?
LK: I would have pursued the possibility of a joint degree with Anthropology.
CD: What could a current IPCAA student do today to prepare for a career like yours?
LK: Since I have followed a rather typical academic trajectory, the advice I have to offer is quite predictable: write an original dissertation that opens up new empirical and conceptual terrain; try to have a couple of publications under your belt before you graduate, ideally one in a peer-reviewed journal; present your developing work at conferences in order to make yourself visible and build relationships beyond Michigan; gain experience with grant-writing.
CD: What new opportunities do you hope to pursue in the next five or ten years?
LK: As a co-director of a collaborative American-Armenian research initiative known as Project ArAGATS, I am committed to continuing our investigations into the material constitution of social and political life in the Caucasus and Armenian highlands during the Bronze and Iron Ages. My colleagues and I are currently in the process of launching a new program of survey and excavations in the Kasakh River Valley of north-central Armenia, with a focus on the role of the fortress in the production of political community. The work of Project ArAGATS introduces new opportunities at every turn, from new collaborations with colleagues near and far, to new questions requiring new methods.
At the same time, in partnership with Adam T. Smith, in 2014 I co-founded a heritage organization called the Aragats Foundation, whose mission is to encourage and support archaeological tourism, education, and economic development in the Republic of Armenia, with a particular emphasis on the environs of Mt. Aragats. Our goal is to utilize the region’s extensive archaeological and heritage resources as a means to enhance both regional prosperity and global understanding of Armenia’s past and present. In unexpected ways, this project brings together my earlier career interests in international development with my current profession as an archaeologist. The work of the Aragats Foundation is likely to be a major focus of my energies over the next five to ten years.