Universiteit Leiden

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Research project

Memory in Antiquity

This project seeks to create a research group to explore the uses and meanings of memory in ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and the Near East. It capitalises on the broad interest in memory in the humanities and social sciences and provides a forum for researchers to reflect on the processes of remembering and forgetting, how these are identifiable in the ancient sources, and what role they play in the construction of ideas about the past. Related to contemporary experiences such as migration, this project speaks to various audiences and will translate the lessons from the past into an engaged dialogue about the future.

Contact
Miriam Müller
Funding
Birmingham-Leiden Strategic Collaboration Fund
Partners

University of Birmingham and the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC)

Overview

This project envisages two related workshops in which participants will explore the implications of two aspects of memory. First, the one-day workshop at Leiden, to be held in late March 2025 with ten speakers mostly from Leiden and the Netherlands who will engage in response to five keynote lectures, will centre around the concept of remembering. Iconographic representations and the construction of lived experience in ritual landscapes all provide productive case studies to illustrate approaches to this topic.

The second one-day workshop will take place in Birmingham in late April 2025 with a majority of discussants from Birmingham and the UK and will focus on material and linguistic aspects of the process of forgetting. Exploring themes such as iconoclasm, damnatio memoriae, and how events are ‘written out’ of historical narratives, forgetting will be characterised as a crucial practice to understand the past and the present.

Given the background and expertise of the two organisers, the initial workshops outlined will have a clear focus on Egyptological research, with the intention to act as a pilot project to test the feasibility of the group. Invited colleagues from neighbouring disciplines such as Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Ancient History, Archaeology, Art History and Middle Eastern Studies will contextualise the Egyptological cases studies. These workshops seek to establish a form connection between both universities with a view to develop joint research and teaching activities around the theme of memory in the ancient world.

A final activity will contribute towards further collaborations and relationship building in another strategic area, namely Egypt, in order to develop some trilateral activities. The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC) is an academic centre based in Cairo but affiliated with the University of Leiden, hence providing an academic nexus between Birmingham, Leiden, and Egypt. The organisers will present the results of the two preceding workshops to a local audience at the NVIC, using their time in Cairo to pump-prime future research activities.

Events

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