The Honors College and the Department of Anthropology are excited to present the Spring 2025 Bhatia Lecture (PDF), featuring Dr. Kate Franklin. Join us as Dr. Franklin explores the lives of the people of medieval Armenia through an insightful examination of art and historical writing from that era.
We invite you to join us on the Pullman campus on Thursday, March 27, from 4–5 p.m. in Bryan Hall 305.
Here’s a brief preview from Dr. Franklin herself, outlining what her talk will cover:
“Making art and writing history amidst the ruins: perspectives from medieval Armenia”
In this talk I will explore a glimpse of the world of art and culture at the turn of the fourteenth century in the mountains and canyons of Armenia. During the century from 1230 to 1330, some of the most exquisite art and fascinating historical writing of the medieval Caucasus were produced in the small towns of Vayots Dzor, an arid land of canyons now located in the south-central Republic of Armenia.
I will look closer at the making of art in these difficult years, as well as the writing of history by scholars like Step’anos Orbelyan, a bishop who wrote about meeting world-ruling khans from his remote scriptorium. How did making art and writing history enable medieval people to navigate their world? What might we learn from medieval ways of understanding the world, of looking to the past as well as to the future?
For questions, please contact WSU Honors College at honors@wsu.edu.
