AUA Summer 2014 Program

The American University of Armenia is pleased to announce the AUA Summer 2014 Program.

Comprised of three weeks at Armenia’s very own university offering a global education, AUA Summer 2014 is an opportunity to get acquainted with the legacy and culture of the Armenian people in an American-accredited institution, while at the same time getting in touch with modern-day Armenia.

Lectures and presentations on Armenian Heritage and Culture, Armenian Music, and Armenian Art and Architecture will be interspersed with excursions to concerts or theater, historical sites in Armenia, as well as visits to museums and galleries.

 

The AUA Summer 2014 Program is open both to current students and also to individuals generally interested in the topic areas covered by the courses. 

 

This course is aimed at taking on a few broad spheres of the Armenian world. More than one instructor  will be offering multiple perspectives on the rich legacy of the nation through lectures and presentations that touch upon such topics as the origins of the Armenian people, twentieth-century Armenian history, including the Armenian Genocide, Soviet Armenia, and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, plus other policy issue areas; an overview of the economy of the Republic of Armenia, including the role of the Diaspora in it; insights into the geography of Armenia, as well as environmental issues facing the country; and also the heritage of the Armenian Church.
(3 credits)

This course will offer a survey of the Armenian musical tradition, ranging from medieval church music authors and genres to the works of modern Armenian composers written in the beginning of the twenty-first century. The course will be divided into different themes covering separate phases in the history of Armenian music, such as folk music, church music, semi-professional ashugh music (with the bard Sayat-Nova regarded as its culmination), as well as academic musical composition. The birth of Armenian classical music in the second half of the nineteenth century will be demonstrated and explained. Special emphasis will be given to the music of Komitas, as he is considered to be the first composer who fully synthesized the qualities of Armenian national music with the principles of contemporary Western music. The birth of Armenian national opera and symphony, the problems of maintaining national identity during the Soviet era, and the differences between Western and Eastern Armenian composers will also be discussed. Particular attention will be paid to listening to different musical works and following the discussions around them.
(3 credits)

This course will include a series of lectures on Armenian Art and Architecture, taking on theoretical questions of attributing a work of art or an artifact to either a nation, a people, or to a region, alongside the question of the relevance of conceptual tools to be applied and philosophical problems of historicity, identity, ideology, and the current value of such works. The participants will have the opportunity to visit museums of art and architecture and certain architectural monuments in Armenia dating back to ancient/pagan history, the medieval era, and up to modern times, while simultaneously being introduced to different aspects of their style, and their historical and cultural contexts. Meetings will be held with influential artists, practicing architects and city planners, as well as with art curators and critics in order to clarify some recent, urgent problems of Armenian culture, cultural politics, and education in the field.
(3 credits)

 

Each course will meet four times a week for 2.5 hour lectures. Off-campus excursions will serve as a key component of the curriculum. Over three weeks, the courses come to a total of 30 classroom hours, plus an additional minimum 15 contact hours in the field, amounting to 45 hours, or 3 credits.

Because of AUA’s American accreditation, the courses will carry units which may be transferable to your home university according to their guidelines.

 

Please note that the Armenian Heritage and Culture course will be scheduled for mornings, while the the other two courses will meet simultaneously in the afternoons, so it will be possible to combine either Armenian Music or Armenian Art and Architecture with Armenian Heritage and Culture.