In “The City Lament: Jerusalem Across the Medieval Mediterranean,” Dr. Boyadjian examines how various ethnoreligious cultures across the medieval Mediterranean world lamented the loss of the city of Jerusalem, and in what ways these lamentations are informed by reinscribing models from the ancient world. The critical objective of Dr. Boyadjian’s work is to expose cross-cultural exchange and interaction across the medieval Mediterranean through an examination of the lament tradition across Arabo-Islamic, Cilciian Armenian, and Western European literary sources. She demonstrates how each of these cultures share similar modes of lamenting cities, all of which also coming from ancient prototypes. By understanding the loss of the city, each tradition further its political objectives of reconquering Jerusalem by simultaneously envisaging their own Jerusalem through a textually surrogate geography of the city, also informed by the theological and spiritual tradition of the significance of the city for that particular faith. It is through these city laments that these cultures allow for their own Jerusalems to live anew- through this very paradoxical mourning of its loss and destruction.
Dr. Tamar M. Boyadjian is an Associate Professor of Medieval Literature and teaches Creative writing (poetry) and Translation courses in the Department of English at Michigan State University. Her academic research and publications primarily focus on the intersections between Europe and the Middle East across the Medieval Mediterranean, with a focus also on the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. Further research interests include: representation of women across medieval Mediterranean literature; women and lamentation; Jerusalem and representations of space in literature; and queer studies and the medieval Mediterranean. She is author of the award-winning book, The City Lament: Jerusalem Across the Medieval Mediterranean (Cornell UP, 2018), and her current book project is entitled, Eastern Princesses: Compleynt, Conquest, & Conversion in Late Medieval English Literature.
The lecture will be on Zoom Conference, and registration is required. Use this link to register: bit.ly/armenianstudiesboyadjian. The lecture will also be streamed on the Armenian Studies Program YouTube channel at bit.ly/armenianstudiesyoutube.
For more information about the lecture please contact the Armenian Studies Program at 278-2669, visit our website at www.fresnostate.edu/armenianstudies, or visit our Facebook page at @ArmenianStudiesFresnoState.
