Melanie S. Tanielian

Melanie S. Tanielian is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Director of the Program for International and Comparative Studies. She holds a PhD from the University of California-Berkeley (2012). Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of World War I in the Middle East, humanitarianism, and the intersection of war and society. She directs the Center for Armenian Studies and has curated major exhibits on Middle Eastern wartime documentation.

Her monograph The Charity of War: Famine, Humanitarian Aid and World War I in the Middle East (2017) examines Ottoman Beirut's relief efforts during WWI. Current projects include Scandals and Salvation: German Humanitarianism in the Eastern Mediterranean (under contract with Cambridge UP) and Transnational Lunacy: Madness, Society, and Citizenship in a World at War. Recent research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies and National Endowment for the Humanities.

Her articles analyze humanitarian practices from child sponsorship to famine management, with a focus on visual representation of genocide survivors. She co-edits volumes on Armenian Genocide afterlives and psychiatric legacies. Teaching interests span Middle Eastern history, humanitarianism, and war studies.