Melissa Bilal

Melissa Bilal is the Dumanian Visiting Professor of Armenian Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC). She holds a PhD in Music from the University of Chicago and prior degrees in Sociology from Boğaziçi University. Her academic journey includes roles as a Visiting Scholar of History at MIT, Ordjanian Visiting Faculty at Columbia University, and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Orient-Institut Istanbul. She also served at Boğaziçi University and held a Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship in Music at Columbia.

Her research focuses on memory politics, Armenian community narratives, and the intersection of music with historical trauma. Key areas include the 1915-1922 genocide, displacement, and feminist discourses. She critiques neoliberal memory frameworks and explores storytelling as protest through music and oral traditions.

Publications include "Voice Signatures" (2018), analyzing Armenian POW recordings, and her forthcoming monograph "The Wake Up Lullaby" on gender and Armenian revolutionary music. She co-edited "A Cry for Justice" (2006) and collaborates on a digital humanities project, "Feminism in Armenian."

Her Mellon Fellowship highlights her scholarly impact. Current projects emphasize Armenian feminist archives and Ottoman contexts, blending historical analysis with contemporary digital methods.