“ARMENIAN THOUGHT THROUGH THE AGES” AT MANHATTANVILLE COLLEGE

Professor Siobhan Nash Marshall

The Philosophy Department of Manhattanville College (Harrison, NY) has begun offering a new course called Armenian Thought Through the Ages. The intention of the Chair of the Philosophy Department is to reinsert the Armenian voice into the general philosophical curriculum of the College. It is of crucial importance to the philosophical world as a whole that the Armenian voice be remembered. “It is Plato who reminds us of this fact,” Prof. Siobhan Nash-Marshall, who also holds the Mary T. Clark Chair of Christian Philosophy, said. “In the last book of the Republic, and at a crucial moment in his definition of justice, he recounts the ‘Myth of Er, the Armenian.’ A philosophy department cannot at once honor Plato, and not know the Armenian voice.”

With 18 enrolled students, the course started in the spring semester of academic year 2021-22 with a novel approach. It began with post-genocidal literature and will work its way back to the roots of that literature in the golden age of Armenian thought. It will analyze texts of Tavit Anhaght, Krikor Narekatsi, Nerses Shnorhali, and Nerses Lambronatsi.