Prof Mathews: Lecture on "The Consequences of Byzantine Icon Cult in Armenia"
OXFORD ARMENIAN STUDIES
Armenian Studies Seminar
Trinity Term 2013
Thursdays 5-6:30 pm, Lecture Room 1
The Oriental Institute, Pusey Lane, Oxford OX1 2LE
Week 4 - Thursday 16 May
Prof Thomas F. Mathews (New York University)
The Consequences of Byzantine Icon Cult in Armenia
Vrt'anes Kert'ol asserts in his defense of images (604-7) that "among Armenians no one knew how to make images, but they imported them from the Greeks." Even though Armenian churches lacked the icon carrying templon screen of Byzantine churches, archaeological evidence in pre-Arab times confirms the circulation of Byzantine icons in Armenia and Armenian arguments in defense of icons echo arguments made earlier as far away as Egypt. Icon cult was not "Greek" in a narrow sense of the term but widespread in the pre-Islamic Christian world.
This lecture is a sequel to the lecture to be on Wednesday 15 May in the Late Antiquity and Byzantine Studies Seminar (Oxford) on the Cult of Icons in the Era before Iconoclasm
Further Seminars:
Week 5 - Thursday 23 May
Dr Irene Tinti (University of Oxford)
On the Armenian Timaeus: Language and Authorship
Among the extant ancient Armenian translations of Platonic dialogues, which are anonymous, undated and not as yet critically edited in their entirety, the Timaeus in particular still needs to be globally analysed from a linguistic and traductological perspective. The talk will detail some results of an ongoing research project concerning its language and translation technique –especially its Hellenised features–and address the matter of the attribution, showing how the linguistic analysis itself could hopefully contribute to clarify it.
Week 6 - Thursday 30 May
Mr Federico Alpi (University of Pisa)
Grigor Magistros’ Letters: Research Themes and (New) Perspectives
Mr Alpi is spending this Trinity Term in Oxford, preparing a PhD on Grigor Magistros (c. 990 – 1059) Letters. He builds on his excellent Italian language MA thesis with translation and study of Grigor’s three letters on the Thondrakians. He now casts his net much wider, including all of the epistolary. The presentations will concentrate on new perspectives on Grigor and his work, proposed by the speaker.
Previous lectures:
Week 1 - Tuesday 23 April
Dr Hratch Tchilingirian (University of Oxford)
Regional Conflicts and Future Uncertainties: Armenian Diaspora Communities in the Contemporary Middle East
This talk will present the situation of Armenian communities spread in some 10 countries in the Middle East today, with a particular focus on the diaspora in the Levant. It will highlight some of the key internal and external problems facing the Armenian (and generally Christian) communities and will draw some conceptual conclusions as to how these processes affect identity construction, maintenance and preservation.
Week 2 - Thursday 2 May
Dr Emilio Bonfiglio (University of Geneva)
New Testament Apocrypha in Armenian Literature: Case Study of the Acts of Philip
Dr Bonfiglio (DPhil Oxon, 2011) is Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Post Doctoral Fellow at the University of Geneva, where he prepares an edition of the Armenian version of a New Testament apocryphon, the Acts of Philip. He will present the findings of his research within the wider context of New Testament apocrypha in Armenian literature.
Week 3 - Thursday 9 May
Prof Robert W. Thomson (University of Oxford)
Arabic into Armenian: The Case of Nonnus of Nisibis.
The Armenian version of the Commentary on the Gospel of St John by Nonnus of Nisibis is the first example of a translation from Arabic into Armenian. It was commissioned following a debate at the court of Ashot Bagratuni in 817 between Syrian representatives of the Chalcedonian and miaphysite persuasions. Nonnus compiled his commentary from Syriac sources, but presented the text in Arabic. A translation was made some 50 or 60 years later, and was widely copied. Professor Thomson will discuss this translation in the general context of translations from Arabic into Armenian, and will also discuss the earliest example of a fictitious debate between a Christian and a Muslim written in Armenian.
Oxford Armenian Studies: Dr Hratch Tchilingirian and Prof Theo M van Lint
Further information:
Theo Maarten van Lint
Calouste Gulbenkian Professor of Armenian Studies
University of Oxford
http://www.orinst.ox.ac.uk/staff/ec/tvanlint.html
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