PRESS RELEASE
Armenian Studies Program
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Ms. Gloria Caudill, Administrator
Tel: (734) 763-0622
Email: gcaudill@umich.edu

The University of Michigan to hold an international conference on
"The Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition"

The Armenian Studies Program at the University of
Michigan is pleased to announce an international conference on "The
Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition: A Comparative Perspective." The
conference will take place at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
October 16-19, 2008.

This is the second conference on the theme which the
Armenian Studies Programs at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and
the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, had independently conceived but
jointly planned. The first conference was organized by the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem and took place in Jerusalem in 2007.

The Ann Arbor conference will highlight the Armenian
Apocalyptic tradition in the broadest sense of the word, and in a
comparative context, in both literature and the arts. Scholars from
Armenia, Europe and the USA will discuss eschatological and millennial
themes, visions and prophecies, maledictions and revelations, origins
and apocrypha, and related topics in this important but inadequately
explored field. Within the larger comparative context, papers will
highlight apocalyptic themes common to the Syriac, Byzantine, Coptic,
Ethiopic, Slavonic, Georgian and Armenian traditions, or comparative
aspects of one or more of these traditions. Papers dealing with
visual representations of such elements in these traditions will
illustrate their reflection and interpretation in art.

It is hoped that the comparative approach adopted by the
conference will shed much new light on the prescience of seers and the
imaginary and imaginative ways in which they reflected the
religious-cultural concerns and social-political aspirations of their
respective traditions. The proceedings will be published as a volume
in English. Professor Kevork B. Bardakjian is the main convener of
the conference.

The conference is open to the public.