According to conventional Western wisdom, the modern novel was invented in 18th-century England with works like Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. The Graeco-Roman novel had once been considered to be the origin of this branch of world literature, but this view had to contend with the dawning realization that romance and novel-like literature had already been produced in the “Orient” for centuries, especially in the land of the Nile, which has even been claimed as the Graeco-Roman novel’s essential inspiration.

Egypt’s role in the birth of romance and as a crucible for the branch of world literature which became the novel still lacks a concentrated effort of collaborative study scholars from Egyptology, Classics, Biblical and early Christian studies, even Coptology, given the underappreciated legacy of the ancient novel in Coptic literature. This conference brings together just such a group in order to achieve a clearer understanding of the complex ways in which different cultural, ethnic, and religious groups coexisting in Egypt from ca. the 4th century BCE to the 7th century CE produced novelistic prose literature and romance, while the land of the Nile passed from Persian to Greek, from Greek to (East) Roman, from Roman to Persian and back to Roman, and finally to Islamic rule.

Programm:

WEDNESDAY, 10 SEPTEMBER
Room 2.2058

13:30
Registration

14:00 
Welcome

Greek and Demotic novel(la)s

14:15 
Friedhelm Hoffmann (Munich)
“Diachrone Betrachtungen zur Länge ägyptischer Erzählungen”

14:45 
Joseph Cross (Berlin)
“The Demotic Novella in the Garden of Egypt”

15:15 
Coffee break

15:35 
Yvona Trnka-Amrhein (Boulder, CO)
“Did the Ptolemies Invent the Ruler Novel?”

16:05 
Jacqueline Jay (Richmond, KY)
“Orality and Literacy; Poetry and Prose: Formal Antecedents of the Greek Novel”

16:35 
Nikoletta Kanavou (Athens)
“Greek and Egyptian Fiction: Common Narrative Themes and Techniques”

17:05 
Coffee break

17:30 
Key Note
Ian Rutherford (Reading)
“Egyptian and Greek Narratives: Towards a Typology of Entanglement”
For registered guests only

18:30 
Reception with buffet

THURSDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER
Room 0.2051

10:00 
Frank Feder (Berlin)
“The Greek Version of the Myth of the Sun’s Eye – Translation or Interpretation?”

10:30 
Franziska Naether (Leipzig)
“Spellbinding Stories: Magic, Divination and other Cult Practices in Literary Texts from Graeco-Roman Egypt”

11:00 
Coffee break

11:15 
Robert Cioffi (New York)
“Representation and Resistance”

11:45 
Daniel Selden (Santa Cruz, CA)
“Distributed Authorship in Historical Perspective”

12:15 
Lunch

13:15 
Florian Ebeling (Heidelberg)
“Heliodorus’ Aithiopika and Egypt as a Culture of Symbolic Meaning”

Jewish novel(la)s in Egypt

13:45 
Elisa Uusimäki (Aarhus)
“Rethinking Artapanus: A Cosmpolitan Text?”

14:15 
Davide D’Amico (Metz)
“How to Shape a King: Egyptian and Hellenistic Literary Motifs in the Moses of Artapanus”

14:45 
Coffee break

15:00 
Ted Erho (Munich)
“Escaping Death: The Tale of the Egyptian Brothers Jannes and Jambres”

Coptic literature and Cambyses traditions

15:30 
Frederic Krueger (Berlin)
“The Legacy of the Ancient Novel in Coptic Literature”

FRIDAY, 12 SEPTEMBER
Room 2.2058

10:00 
John Dillery (Charlottesville, VA)
“Ancient Egyptian Chaosbeschreibung in the Cambyses Romance”

10:30 
Michal Habaj (Brno)
“Cambyses’ Negative Reputation and Darius. An Example of Royal Judges in Herodotus’ Histories
(Hdt. 5.25 and 7.194)”

11:00 
Florian Graz (Oslo)
“Echoes from the Past: The Origins of Pseudo-Documentarism in Antiquity”

11:30–12:00
Final Discussion and Outlook

Registration & Contact

Joseph Cross (joseph.cross@hu-berlin.de)
Frederic Krueger (rederic.krueger@fu-berlin.de)