Christina Maranci Receives Sona Aronian Armenian Studies Book Prize

The cover of *Vigilant Powers: Three Churches of Early Medieval Armenia* (Photo: Brepols)

Dr. Christina Maranci has been awarded the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Dr. Sona Aronian Book Prize for Excellence in Armenian Studies for her monograph Vigilant Powers: Three Churches of Early Medieval Armenia (Brepols, 2015).

NAASR’s Aronian Awards were established in 2014 by the late Dr. Aronian and Dr. Geoffrey Gibbs, to be awarded annually to an outstanding scholarly works in the English language in the field of Armenian Studies and in translation from Armenian into English. The 2016 award for a book published in the year 2015.

The announcement of the prize was made on Nov. 18, 2016, at a reception at NAASR’s Belmont, Mass., headquarters. The reception was held in honor of NAASR’s Leadership Circle members and the members of the Society for Armenian Studies, which was holding its annual meeting in Boston that week.

NAASR Director of Academic Affairs Marc Mamigonian congratulated Maranci, who holds the Arthur H. Dadian and Ara T. Oztemel Associate Chair in Armenian Art at Tufts University, and who was present to receive the award, noting that her book is one that “changes and enriches our understanding of early Armenian church architecture in profound ways.”

“I am beyond thrilled to have received this award, and particularly through the good offices of NAASR. NAASR facilitated my difficult fieldwork at the church of Mren, the subject of the first chapter of the book, in which I presented a great deal of new evidence,” Maranci said.

She pointed out her many years of association with NAASR, saying that she has “also benefitted from giving presentations at NAASR, where I have always enjoyed informed, insightful, curious, impassioned, and supportive audiences. Feedback from NAASR lectures helped me at each stage of preparing this book, so it is particularly wonderful to receive this award.”