Skip to main content Skip to main navigation Skip to footer content

College of Arts and Humanities

​​​​​​David Zakarian

Professor

Armenian Studies | Office: Peters Business Building, Room 408

davidzakarian@csufresno.edu

Education

DPhil in Oriental Studies (2011-2015) St Antony’s College, University of Oxford

Dissertation title: The Representation of Women in Early Christian Literature: Armenian Texts of the Fifth Century

MSt in Classical Armenian Studies (2010-2011) Pembroke College, University of Oxford

MA in English Literature and Culture (2007-2010) School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Dissertation title: The Vagantendichtung: The Secular Latin Poetry of the Wandering Scholars of the Middle Ages

BA in English Language & Literature (2002-2005) School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Courses Taught

  • Arm 1A: Elementary Armenian
  • Arm 148: Masterpieces of Armenian Culture
  • Arm 148: Masterpieces of Armenian Culture (Digital Synchronous)

Dr. David Zakarian is the Haig and Isabel Berberian Endowed Chair of Armenian Studies at California State University, Fresno. He earned his Bachelor of Arts (2005) and Master of Arts (2010) degrees in English Language and Literature from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Dr. Zakarian then pursued further studies at the University of Oxford, where he obtained a Master of Studies in Classical Armenian (2011) and a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Oriental Studies (2015), with a thesis entitled “The Representation of Women in Early Christian Literature: Armenian Texts of the Fifth Century.”

From 2017 to 2019, Dr. Zakarian was a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford, where he worked on the project “Writing History from Below: Christian–Muslim Interactions in Armenian Colophons during the Long Fifteenth Century (1375–1501).” Between 2020 and 2024, he served as an Associate Member of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford, where he taught Classical and Modern Armenian language courses and delivered lectures on the medieval history of Armenia.

Dr. Zakarian is the author of Women, Too, Were Blessed: The Portrayal of Women in Early Christian Armenian Texts (Brill, 2021) and co-editor of Armenia through the Lens of Time: Multidisciplinary Studies in Honour of Theo Maarten van Lint (Brill, 2022). He has also published numerous articles and book chapters on the colophons of medieval Armenian manuscripts and the representation of women in early Christian Armenian literature.

In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Dr. Zakarian is an avid chess player and holds the title of FIDE Master.