Our Woman of the Week is Christina Maranci, nominated for her groundbreaking work in the study of the history of Armenian art and architecture. We asked her to tell you how she became a professor (she occupies a named chair at Tufts University). The nature of her work means that she is also a researcher, translator, and advocate. You see her here in a doorway at the Mren Cathedral in Ani, Turkey (formerly Armenia), and guiding students from St. Nersess's and St. Vladimir's Seminaries at an Armenian exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City:
"I got very lucky. There were so many other possible paths. I am fundamentally lazy, and almost any other job would have found me fired. I know this because I have worked as an administrative assistant for a variety of outfits--I worked in a Boston police station for a stint as well. That was after getting a PhD from Princeton. I get very sleepy and bored at a desk job. I never work at desks--I think it is a kind of automatic reaction for me to want to go to sleep. I wrote my dissertation in bed and now I work on a sofa.
"At the same time I am lazy, I also work myself punishingly hard. Those who share this strange trait of being lazy/hardworking will know what I mean. So I very much needed to find the right job. That is where my luck came in. Kind and generous people in academia, my future mentors, gave me a leg up. I would not be here if they hadn’t taken me up!
"My parents gave me the opportunities to develop my creative and critical faculties. They worked hard to put me and my brothers through college. They believed in a liberal arts curriculum. They believed in the humanities (even though my dad was a chemical engineer). They loved art and culture and transmitted that love to me. They didn’t worry when I told them I wanted to major in art history. On the contrary, I think they were proud. I’m so grateful to them."
Axia!
Christina Maranci is our Woman of the Week, nominated for her work in Armenian art history, but also for her compassion as a teacher. We asked her to tell you how she came to see failure as key to her success. You see her here discussing an Armenian cross with a colleague at an Armenian exhibit in New York City:
"I have failed so many times. I have been rejected so many times. It is never enjoyable. There is a searing and intensely personal feeling about being criticized for me as for everyone. My failures tend to be big and obvious, like when I failed my comprehensive exams in graduate school (the big hurdle before beginning the doctoral dissertation). I wrote two sentences in response to an essay question--and they were not very long or good sentences. I realized I had no idea how to take a test. Or even expound on a subject. I had studied and researched and written in my seminars, but somehow never learned how to write an exam. So my very kind and patient advisor of blessed memory, Professor Slobodan Curcic, worked with me every week, setting questions for me to answer. Long story short, I passed with flying colors in my re-take.
"It was a hideous, out-of-body experience to fail those exams. But I did learn from it, and of course now I tell students about my experience. We all know students who seem effortlessly to glide from one triumph to another, or at least from one safe perch to another. I did not have that ability or instinct. So I had to learn everything from the ground up. This has turned out to be very good for my teaching- I take nothing for granted, and I relish explaining extremely basic things to students, because I know that among them there are people like me, who somehow worry about learning, and get in their own way."
We asked our Woman of the Week, Christina Maranci, about her morning routine:
"My husband makes breakfast (good husband!) and I eat it. I generally spend some time playing with my cat, Rupert, who likes to be snuggled with directly after breakfast (hers and mine).
"I do so sometimes while checking email, which I always find terrifying because I am always behind on something. And I always fear disappointing or angering other people, or receiving angry emails (which tend to come on Friday and Saturday nights, why?).
"I usually try to reserve the morning hours for my favorite work, which is usually whatever research I am doing. It might be reading some Armenian-language stuff, it might be poring over photographs of Armenian churches. It might be writing. Anything that uses the brain. The more mechanical work of editing, not to mention teaching, teaching prep, or being department chair, I leave to the afternoon. Having said all this, I used to be able to bound out of bed and write and work without stopping. I’ve slowed down. At the same time, now I have some good hours late in the day, after dinner, as well. I don’t usually check the news until the afternoon.
"Lately with everything going on in the world, I am much busier than I have ever been before. Like so many people I feel like I am just barely keeping it all together. I long for a vacation – it has been years. But I always try to use every day to work, no exceptions. And if I am upset, or worried, I work harder. It is either that or hide in bed under the covers."
Thank you, Christina!
