Heghnar Watenpaugh, associate professor of art history at the University of California, Davis, traces the path of a single work of art—the Zeytun Gospels—during the 1915 deportations. She reconstructs the way in which Armenians viewed works of art, especially religious manuscripts, as they witnessed their own extermination, the confiscation of their possessions, and the destruction of their cultural heritage.

The lecture will be followed by an opening reception and viewing of the exhibit Now or Never: Collecting, Documenting and Photographing the Aftermath of World War I in the Middle East.