English Prof Explores Intergenerational Trauma

By Nathaly Lopez | Published May 3, 2023

When Nafina Aroosian escaped Armenia after witnessing the murder of her parents, she could not have imagined the impact it would have on her future generations.

“Sadness and strength,” are the words that Janet Balakian, PhD., a Kean University English professor and award-winning playwright, said to describe her grandmother.  “The strength of someone that can come through an atrocity like that because she was able to get a new life.” 

Her grandmother’s escape from the Ottoman Empire Turks, who massacred her own family and 1.5 million other Armenians, is a tragic legacy and survival story that Balakian has been exploring for much of her life. She has produced several plays about the Armenian genocide of 1915-1923.

 Her most recent play, “Dreams on Fire” was directed by Nora Armani, an actress and filmmaker who is also a daughter of Armenian parents. 

In her play, Balakian focused on intergenerational trauma through the eyes of a college student. She used notes from her great uncle, also a survivor of the Armenian genocide, as well as ideas from an earlier play she wrote while a student at Cornell that won the university’s playwriting prize. 

“Dreams on Fire” was presented in a Zoom reading as part of the Kean University Research Day activities last year. 

“I wanted to call attention to mental health awareness,” Balakian said of her play’s purpose. 

 As a granddaughter of an Armenian genocide survivor, Armani said she feels connected to Balakian’s play. 

“This is a very important theme, and that is what gave me enthusiasm in wanting to be part of this, and I hope I did the play justice,” Armani said. 

Balakian’s grandmother Aroosian plays an important role in her family. Peter Balakian, Ph.D., Balakian’s brother, is an American poet and winner of a 2016 Pulitzer Prize who has written much about the cruelty of the Armenian genocide.It was her brother’s book, Sad Days of Light,  that inspired her to write her first play.

Balakian said Aroosian was bold for her time, and once she arrived in the United States, she took matters into her own hands. Knowing that putting words into the record is important, she submitted a claim against the government of Turkey to an office of the State Department in Newark in 1920. 

“She wrote it all down and submitted it to lawyers in Newark,” Balakian said. 

Words became a way of life for the whole family. Besides Peter Balakian, one of her sisters teaches surrealism at NYU and another is a book critic for the New York Times. 

In her writing about literature courses at Kean University, Balakian incorporates her brother’s memoir Black Dog of Fate as one of the readings. “Often, students don’t even put the dots together,” she said of her experience with students.

Balakian became aware that most students didn’t know about the Armenian genocide and believed her brother’s book would give insight to students about such important history. 

“I wanted to use a memoir to teach your generation that history and literature are one in the same,” she said. 

Charles Nelson, Ph.D., Executive Director of the English department at Kean University and a colleague, said Balakian has a passion for her students to succeed. 

“She has a real concern for students and wants to see them learn,” Nelson said.

Balakian is devoted to her profession, and each day recognizes that her grandmother is part of her successful career. 

“If she never escaped, I would never be here,” she said.

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