Recent years have seen the re-ignition of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The historical monuments of this mountainous territory in the South Caucasus attest to the presence of Armenian people in the region for millennia. With the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict having culminated in the expulsion of Armenians from their homes after Azerbaijan assumed control of the region, these monuments are in serious danger. In this episode, we talk with Professor Christina Maranci about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the rich cultural heritage of the region, and our responsibility as scholars concerning at-risk cultural heritage sites and monuments.
Christina Maranci is the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the art and culture of Armenia. She is the author of four scholarly monographs and over 100 articles and essays on medieval Armenian art and architecture. Her 2015 monograph, Vigilant Powers: Three Churches of Early Medieval Armenia won the Karen Gould Prize for Art history from the Medieval Academy of America, and the Sona Aronian Prize for best Armenian Studies monograph from the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research. She has worked on issues of cultural heritage for over a decade, with special focus on at-risk Armenian churches and monasteries in modern-day East Turkey. She has authored various op.-eds and essays for the Wall Street Journal, Apollo, The Conversation, and Hyperallergic, and has also been featured on National Public Radio’s Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
Jonathan Correa Reyes is an Assistant Professor of English at Clemson University. His research focuses on constructions of collective identity in the medieval literary archive. He is especially interested in premodern understandings of the Human, with emphasis on articulations of racial thinking. Although mainly working on the medieval literary traditions of the British Isles, he also studies the textual cultures of medieval Iberia and Scandinavia. His work has been supported by the Ford Foundation.
Additional resources:
“The Medieval Armenian Monuments in Nagorno-Karabakh Must Be Protected”
Caucasus Heritage Watch website
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