FRESNO — Dr. David Zakarian will give a presentation on “Glimpses into Womens’ Lives in Medieval Armenia” at 7:00PM on Friday, May 9, 2025, in the Grosse Industrial Technology Building, Room 101 (2255 E. Barstow Ave., at the corner of Barstow Ave. and Campus Drive.), on the Fresno State campus.
“Glimpses into Womens’ Lives in Medieval Armenia” explores how Armenian historical sources offer rare but valuable insights into the experiences of women in the Middle Ages. Although women are seldom featured as protagonists in traditional medieval narratives, a number of Armenian colophons – texts of varying lengths added to manuscripts by scribes after their completion – preserve compelling details about women’s roles in marriage, family life, property ownership, and social relationships. This talk examines these largely overlooked texts to illuminate the everyday lives and agency of women in medieval Armenian societies, offering a richer, more nuanced view of the period.
Dr. David Zakarian is the Haig & Isabel Berberian Professor of Armenian Studies at Fresno State. He received his DPhil in Oriental Studies from St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford. His dissertation was titled “The Representation of Women in Early Christian Literature: Armenian Texts of the Fifth Century.” He has extensive experience teaching classical and modern Armenian and the focus of his research is on the representation of women in early Christian Armenian sources, as well as the colophons of medieval Armenian manuscripts. He is the co-editor of Armenia Through the Lens of Time: Multidisciplinary Studies in Honour of Theo Maarten van Lint (Brill, 2022) and the author of Women, Too, Were Blessed: The Portrayal of Women in Early Christian Armenian Texts, Armenian Texts and Studies Series (Brill, 2021).
The lecture is free and open to the public. Parking is available in Fresno State P23 or P20, at the southeast corner of Barstow and Campus Drive. A parking permit is not required for Friday evening lectures.
The presentation will also be live-streamed on YouTube at: https://bit.ly/armenianstudiesyoutube.
