Michael Stone gives a lecture
at the Library of Congress
Event Date: October 23, 2003
Michael E. Stone, Senior Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the
John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, will present a
lecture titled “A Hidden Treasure: The Armenian Adam Epic by
Arakel of Siwnik” at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 23, in the Mumford
Room, sixth floor of the Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E.,
Washington, D.C.
The event is sponsored by the Library’s John W. Kluge Center and the
Near East Section of the African and Middle Eastern Division of the Library
of Congress in cooperation with the Embassy of the Republic of Armenia.
The public is invited to this free event.
Michael E. Stone is professor of Armenian Studies and Gail de Nur
Professor of Religious Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A scholar
with impressive credentials in Judaica, Hebraica, and biblical and Armenian
studies, Stone is the author of numerous books and articles. In addition, he is
a poet with a longtime interest in the “Adam” literature and has been focusing
his research at the Library of Congress on an original extended Armenian poem,
the “Adamagirk” (“Book of Adam”), written by Arakel of Siwnik.
Arakel of Siwnik (ca. 1350 - ca. 1421) stood at the end of two traditions.
He was abbot of the Monastery of Tat’ew, the last of Armenia’s university
monasteries, and he was the last to write an Armenian biblical epic. “Adamagirk”
exhibits a combination of brilliant poetic narrative with homiletics. Stone is
preparing an annotated and literary translation of the work that will be accessible
to both scholars and the lay community. His talk will set the epic in the context
of literary and religious thought during the period when Armenia was under
Mongol domination.
The Library of Congress established the John W. Kluge Center in 2000
through a generous endowment from its namesake to bring together the world’s
best thinkers to stimulate, energize and distill wisdom from the Library’s rich
resources and to interact with policymakers in the nation’s capital. The Kluge
endowment also funded a million-dollar prize for lifetime achievement in the
humanities and social sciences, which will be awarded for the first time this fall,
on Nov. 5.
The Kluge Center houses five senior Kluge Chairs (American Law and
Governance, Countries and Cultures of the North, Countries and Cultures of
the South, Technology and Society, and Modern Culture); other senior-level
chairs (Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations,
Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in American History and Ethics, and the Harissios
Papamarkou Chair in Education and Technology); and nearly 25 postdoctoral fellows.
For more information about fellowships, grants and programs offered by
the John W. Kluge Center, contact the Office of Scholarly Programs, Library
of Congress, 101 Independence Avenue S.E., Washington, DC 20540-4860;
telephone (202) 707-3302, fax (202) 707-3595, or visit the Web at www.loc.gov/kluge
More information about the Library’s African and Middle Eastern Division can be
found on the Web at
African and Middle Eastern Division