Research Interests
- Degenociding Colonial Societies
- Canadian Identity and Reconciliation
- Children’s Rights
- The Power of Music
Van Armenian is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Ottawa’s Interdisciplinary Research in Music program and a recipient of several scholarships, including a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship, an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and a Fonds pour la formation de chercheurs et l'aide à la recherche fellowship. He builds his research on several decades of experience as a professional violinist, his significant charity work in Armenia, and the understanding that music is a positive force for healing and societal consolidation.
For his thesis, he explicitly asks: How can Indigenous musics and stories, that make visible the experientially rich Indigenous worldviews, help develop a more ethical Canadian identity? Van suggests that providing these worldviews in the K-12 space will not only uphold the State's obligations to respect the innate dignity of the child and to provide quality education but will also serve as a direct denial of continued settler-racism. Furthermore, he argues that this educational shift can become a nucleus for what he terms an act of "degenociding" in Canada.
Balancing his music, research, and charity work, Van lives in the Montreal area with his wife, a schoolteacher, and two teenage daughters.