Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 1pm Eastern / 10am Pacific / 6pm UK
Live on Zoom.
Meeting ID: 894 8375 6910 Passcode: 545992
Join the Armenian Institute and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), for an evening with author David Zakarian discussing his new book Women, Too, Were Blessed: The Portrayal of Women in Early Christian Armenian Texts, a seminal work exploring women and gender in early Christian Armenia.
Women, Too, Were Blessed by David Zakarian is the first extensive study of the representation of women in the fifth-century Armenian literature and historiography. It investigates the ways in which the ecclesiastical authorities envisioned the role of women in society after Christianization and reveals some aspects of women’s lived experience in the patriarchal society of Armenia. The book offers close scrutiny of all the passages that speak about women examining them within the context of pre-Christian (Zoroastrian) beliefs of the Armenians and the works of Greek and Syriac Church Fathers. The texts invariably evince the authors’ tendency to construct and promote role models of influential, pious Christian women who contributed to the preservation and promulgation of the new religion.
David Zakarian is an associate faculty member of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford and an active member of the Oxford Armenian Studies research group. He previously completed his DPhil at Oxford on women in early Christian Armenia, and a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship on the historical value of Armenian manuscript colophons.
This event is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund (UK) and launches a month-long program at the Armenian Institute dedicated to women and gender, in celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8, 2021.
CO-SPONSORS
Armenian Institute
Oxford Armenian Studies
National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)