In summer 2014, Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) will offer a faculty-led study abroad program to Armenia to explore the richness and diversity of Armenian art and architecture.

As Mr. Patrick Dilger, Director of Public Affairs at Southern Connecticut State University told PanARMENIAN.Net, students will spend two weeks in Armenia and will complete a course on the history of Armenian art, taught by Anahit Ter-Stepanian of SCSU’s Department of Art. The course will run from May 22-June 5, 2014.

This study-abroad course is a chronological survey of Armenian art from prehistory to the present, and covers architecture, manuscript illumination, sculpture and painting, as well as decorative arts. Through cultural immersion and personal exposure, students will gain insight into the social, religious, economic and political environments that shaped these works of art.

Students will have the opportunity to visit the oldest known prehistoric observatory of Karahunj, the Urartian city-fortress and citadel of Erebuni; the Hellenistic temple of Garni and numerous medieval churches and medieval monasteries of Haghartsin, Haghpat and Sanahin. They will explore the most expansive collection of medieval Armenian manuscripts at the Museum of Manuscripts in Yerevan, as well as paintings and three-dimensional compositions of modernists Martiros Saryan and Yervand Kochar.

The program is packed with excursions, museum visits and walking tours, and students will have the opportunity to enjoy Yerevan nightlife with visits to jazz clubs, cafés, concerts and dance and ballet performances.

Students will be housed in comfortable apartments in the central part of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Instruction will be provided in English. Students will receive a course pack consisting of the instructor’s lecture notes, handouts and supplementary reading materials. Oral instruction and lectures will be held in museums, at archeological sites and during trips to monuments.