February 22 to 24, 2024, at USC
Preliminary Program
Thursday, February 22
5 pm – Reception, School of Cinematic Arts Lobby
7 pm – Introduction, Screening, and Discussion of The Arabesques on the Pirosmani Theme and Hakob Hovnatanyan, Ray Stark Theater
Friday, February 23
Location: SCI 108
11 am-11:15 am – Welcome remarks
11:15 am-1:00 pm – Panel 1: Crossings in Time and Space
Harsha Ram (UC Berkeley), “Between National and Social Liberation: The Legend of Surami Fortress from Daniel Chonkadze to Sergei Parajanov”
Jacob Plagmann (Princeton), “A Matter of Life and Death: Transcending the Productivist Frame of Soviet Cinema in Parajanov’s The Color of Pomegranates and The Legend of Suram Fortress”
Tigran Simyan (Yerevan State University), “Sergei Parajanov as a Man of the Georgian ‘Frontier’: the World of Things, the City, and Cinema”
1:00 pm-2:00 pm – Lunch for conference participants
Location: Ray Stark Theater
2:00 pm-3:15 pm – Panel 2: Presence and Absence
Daniel Bird (The Hamo Bek-Nazarov Project), “Towards a Cinemadaran: The Preservation and Restoration of Parajanov’s Filmography”
James Steffen (Emory), “Another Water, a Different Script: The Outtakes for Sergei Parajanov’s The Color of Pomegranates”
3:15 pm-3:30 pm – Coffee break
3:30 pm-4:45 pm – Panel 3: Sensory Engagement
Marie-Aude Baronian (University of Amsterdam), “A World of Cinemas: on Parajanov’s Language of Objects”
Armand Tufenkian (UC San Diego), “Ornament and Repair in Color of Pomegranates”
4:45 pm-5:00 pm – Coffee break
5:00 pm-6:00 pm – Keynote: Leah Feldman (University of Chicago), “Parajanov in Queer Times”
6:00 pm-7:30 pm – Dinner for conference participants
Location: Ray Stark Theater
7:30 pm-8:00 pm – Levon Abrahamian (National Academy of Sciences of Armenia), “Toward the Poetics of The Color of Pomegranates“
8:00 pm – Screening and Discussion of Color of Pomegranates
Saturday, February 24
Location: Ray Stark Theater
12:30 pm-2:15 pm – Panel 4: Politics and Violence
Anahit Mikayelyan (Sergei Parajanov Museum), “Ethnography of Prison According to Parajanov”
Simon Garibyan (USC), “The Time to Live, the Time to Die: Necropoetics in the Early Cinema of Sergei Parajanov”
Tetyana Dzyadevych (Grinnell College), “Kyivan Frescos: Bridging Past and Future. A Film Not Meant to Be”
2:15 pm-2:30 pm – Coffee break
2:30 pm-4:15 pm – Panel 5: Performance and Performativity
Jānis Ozoliņš (Institute of Literature, Folklore, and Art of the University of Latvia), “Queer Genealogy of Archaic Modernism and Camp: Sergei Parajanov, Gunars Piesis, and Pier Paolo Pasolini”
Aram Bajakian (University of British Columbia), “A Multitude of Soundtracks: Consent and the Aural Landscape of The Color of Pomegranates”
Arpi Movsesian (University of Notre Dame), “Parajanov and the Sacred: The Sensual Play of a ‘Simple Buffoon’”
4:15 pm-4:30 pm – Coffee break
4:30 pm-5:30 pm – Keynote: Olga Kim (Williams College), “Cinema on the Edge: Sergei Parajanov’s Collage and Tableau Aesthetics as Forms of History”
5:30 pm-7:00 pm – Dinner for participants
Location: Ray Stark Theater
7:00 pm – Introduction, Screening, and Discussion of Ashik Kerib
This event is open to the public and free of charge. Please RSVP to attend by clicking here.
Organized by
USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies and USC Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
Co-sponsored by
USC School of Cinematic Arts
USC Levan Institute
USC Department of Art History
Dornsife Divisional Dean for Humanities
Dornsife Divisional Dean for Social Sciences
USC Department of Political Science and International Relations
USC Center for International Studies
USC Cinema and Media Studies
USC Department of Comparative Literature
National Association for Armenian Studies Research
Armenian Film Society
*Please note this is a preliminary program and is subject to change. For questions, please email armenian@usc.edu