The Arab Oedipus: Four Plays from Egypt and Syria

 

edited with an introduction by Marvin Carlson, New York 2005. 

A Special Program in A Special City: Study in Alexandria

[From the Programm announcement in FB here https://www.facebook.com/Achs.bibalex.org/posts/1835825396555452]

For Arabic Scroll down

--------------------------------------------------------

The Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies (ACHS) announces the beginning of registration for Diploma and Master’s degrees in Hellenistic Studies from 4 August–15 September 2020.

This Master’s Program is the fruit of a collaboration between ACHS, the Vardinoyannis Foundation, and Alexandria University, and is available in four modules: History; Literature; Art, Archaeology and Architecture; Philosophy and Science.

English is the teaching language.

The Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies, in cooperation with the Vardinoyannis Foundation, provides a grant of 75% of the tuition fees to applicants (Terms apply).

Admission requires a BA in Classics, Archaeology or equivalent degrees from an accredited university in Egypt with Good Grade minimum. Those with the aforementioned BAs may apply directly for a Master’s degree. Non-specialized graduates must enroll in a one-year qualifying diploma.

The Center interests itself in the era when Alexandria flourished; namely, from its construction until the end of the Ptolemaic period.

For more information, please contact the Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies:

Tel.: + (203) 4839999, Ext. 1920

E-mail: hellenistic.studies@bibalex.org

Webpage: www.bibalex.org/hellenisticstudies

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/achs.bibalex.org

Database Objects from Coptos

From Papylist messages [13/07/2020]

Dear colleagues,

During several years, Vanessa Desclaux has collected information about more than 1700 objects from the site of Coptos now preserved in various museums, together with their bibliography. We are pleased to announce the publication of this database in its first version:

https://coptos.mom.fr

We hope this tool will be useful for further research. 

With our best wishes,

Laure Pantalacci & Vanessa Desclaux

The Invention and Reinvention of the Egyptian Peasant

The Egyptian Peasant

I wonder if my father has ever read Richard Critchfield's Shahhat: An Egyptian 1978 (in a translated form maybe?), or the colonial eurocentric discourse was so overwhelming, so that he kept reminding me that our village, like any other Egyptian village, barley has a name?

I am more inclined to accept the second guess since he was a government official, first in the village administration council and eventually int he nearby town council,  and most probably had this idea from his predecessors and colleagues, before making it his own motto. Cf. Timothy Mitchell,The Invention and Reinvention of the Egyptian Peasant, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 22, No. 2 (May, 1990), p. 132-133, where he speaks of Critchfield's portrait of Shahhat, a village in Luxor near Kings' valley: 

The Digital Photographic Archive of Professor Garth Fowden FBA

Fowden's Digital Photographic Archive  

[From the website (accessed 09/07/2020)]

The photographic archive he assembled during travels mainly in the Middle East and Greece has been digitized by Cambridge University Library and was published on-line in February 2018:  https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/landscapes/1.

Garth Fowden is a historian of first millennium CE Eurasia, who in pursuit of his interests has travelled extensively in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa. For the greater part of his career he has lived and worked in Greece. This site presents a digitized version of the photographic archive he developed while conducting research on the landscapes and monuments of these regions.

....

From 1977 Fowden began to travel systematically in the Middle East including Turkey, but photography did not become a priority until 1986. The latest items in the archive date from 2007. The main regions covered are Greece, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Iran and Yemen, and less extensively Spain, Italy, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt. The strengths of the collection, reflecting Fowden's research and teaching interests at different periods, are: 

- the relationship between settlement and landscape; 

- fortification, and the evolution of the urban tissue, especially in the late Roman period; 

- religious architecture, especially the conversion of holy places, monasticism, and the emergence of Islam; 

- art and epigraphy preserved in architectural or archaeological contexts;

- traditional  domestic architecture. 

Within each site, the photographs are arranged in a sequence designed to convey some sense of a physical visit, sometimes starting and/or ending with more general shots of the surrounding landscape and of the routes that traverse it. Photographs taken on site are occasionally supplemented by items from museums or print publications designed to make the collection more suitable for teaching purposes.

The documentation of Palmyra, Aleppo (where Fowden spent the first half of 1996 as the guest of the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim), and the Yemen, has particular value and poignancy in the light of recent events. Even more than war, though, it has been urbanization, the construction of dams, and the extensive irrigation of formerly arid areas, that has transformed the region in recent decades. Many of the places recorded will be inaccessible to foreign visitors for the foreseeable future, and are anyway changed beyond recognition.

For a brief introduction to the archive’s background and themes, and a sampling of its contents, click here

Open Access to Classical Papers, the journal of Cairo University's Greek and Latin department

Classical Papers

Vol. I (1991)- XIX (2019)

Classical Papers (CP), the Journal of Cairo University's Department of Greek and Latin (founded by Taha Hussein) is now available online (open-Access: https://preview.tinyurl.com/y83dqdzf ). The volumes doesn't date back to Hussein's pioneering days, but builds upon his Legacy. It is therefore counted as one of the leading journals in Egypt's Classics.

Pronouns in Modern Greek and Arabic: A Comparative Linguistical Study, MA thesis, Beirut 2011

Οι αντωνυμίες ανάμεσα στα Ελληνικά και στα Αραβικά στην σγύχρονη εποχή Συγκριτική μελέτη 

الضمائر بين العربية واليونانية فى العصر الحديث: دراسة تقابلية

It is very interesting to see MA thesis for Beirut Arabic University (BAU). Prof. Ashraf Frag, of Alexandria University, was one of the supervisor. For the content see here.

"The heyday of the Prosopographia Imperii Romani is over"

The heyday of the  Prosopographia Imperii Romani  is over

by Marietta Horster

[From https://www.academia.edu/8653152/The_Prosopographia_Imperii_Romani_and_New_trends_and_Projects_in_Roman_Prosopography. Documentation:  Horster, Marietta, The Prosopographia Imperii Romani (PIR) and NewTrends and Projects in Roman Prosopography Prosopography Approaches and Applications in A Handbook (Prosopographia et Genealogica, Band 13), edited by K. Keats-Rohan, University of Oxford Linacre College Unit for Prosopographical Research, Oxford 2007]

Conclusion

The heyday of the Prosopographia Imperii Romani is over, not only due to the lack of money for a third edition, but also because of the necessity for a different organization and presentation of the information in the future – be it a book or be it in combination with a database on CD-ROM or on the internet and in any language whatsoever.We all hope that a time will come when someone will be able to finance a new way to present and update a prosopography of the Roman Empire.In the meantime many interesting projects of prosopographical studies of the Roman Empire will be published. Revised lists and prosopographies of offices and duties will emerge; the lower ranks of offices and of the army will be the subject of studies similar to the 800-page volume on the centurions of the legions of the Roman Rhine army,which was published by Olivier Richier in 2004.

In present-day Spain and Greece as well as in other countries, there are counter-movements to the domination of Classics by the former great powers Great Britain,France, Germany and Italy, and there is also a nationalist trend against the European Union. Furthermore, and connected with the just mentioned phenomena, there is a general movement towards smaller units and regionalism as subjects for studies in ancient history studies as a backlash against the dominating imperialism/Romanism debate of recent decades. This quest for strong regional and national identities in contemporary society will ensure that prosopographical studies with regional foci will continue to be pursued in the years to come.

Historicizing Algerian war of Independence: Jugurtha's Tragedy and Algerian Iliad

Jugurtha's Tragedy and Algerian Iliad

Coming to North Africa, the conlonizers', whether English, Italian or French, imaging themselves as Romans or Greek heroes/gods. It is interesting to see how Algerian play writer Abdelrahman Madwi has used Numidian King Jugurtha to historicize, on the stage, Algerian war of independence against the French occupation; a technique which not unparalleled in other North African and Arabic countries, let along postcolonial national theaters. It seems that the play was popular so that it was published until 1984 in three editions. See also Algerian Epic, called, Iliad by Cheikh Zakaria (1908-1977).

Postcolonial history of Cyrene, Libya: Chamoux's Greek Cyrène of 1953 into Arabic in 1980

Chamoux's Greek Cyrène of 1953 into Arabic in 1980

François Chamoux's thesis  "Cyrène sous la monarchie des Battiades published in Paris, in 1953 is translated into Arabic in1980.

Postcolonial History of North Africa:Gsell's L'Histoire into Arabic in 2007

Gsell's L'Histoire into Arabic in 2007

It is very interesting to my study to see that the scholarly work of  Stéphane Gsell (7 February 1864 – 1 January 1932) about the history of North Africa L'Histoire ancienne de l'Afrique du Nord published between 1913 and 1929 is translated into Moroccan-Arabic in 8 volumes. The translation is published by the Collège Royal (Rabat) in 2007. I have been able to found only five volumes.

Arabic dictionary and Index of the Greek New Testament

Arabic dictionary and Index of the Greek New Testament

Arabic Students of the Greek New Testament are especially grateful to the late Ghassan Khalaf (1945-2018),  former ABTS President and Professor of Biblical Studies, for this magnificent contribution to Bible studies and Greek lexicography.

It is an Greek-Arabic and Arabic-Greek Fihrst (Index) and dictionary of the Ancient Greek New Testament in more than 1000 pages published in Beirut 1979. Below is an image of the cover and the content.
 

How to encode Arabic script in the Leiden+ Epidoc XML using the papyrological editor?

 For the First Time in the History of Papyrology Greek and Arabic United!

It has been argued extensively that Arabic script and texts (an RTL language i.e. running from right to left) can not be encoded in the heavily tagged and marked up Epidoc XML compatialble files, especially in the papyrological editor of papyri.info.In 2015, I have been able to find an easy and simple way to solve this technical problem that, kept not only Arabic but most of the richt written culture heritage of Egypt, separated, in the print and digital culture, from the much more advanced and sophisticated Greek and Latin papyrology. For the first time in the history of papyrology the Greek and Arabic text of http://papyri.info/ddbdp/sb;6;9576 has been presented in a born-digital edition of the text. Here is a video, I recorded of how to encode this bilingual text bit by bit. Since this historical momentum in 2015, a lot of progress has been done in this regard not only in the text per se, but also in the epistemological level too. Stay tuned for even more progress and cooperation in the framework of my project DIGITAL CLASSICS IN ARABIC.

Egyptian-Arabic Scholarship in Classics and Papyrology: Invisible or Marginalized?

Egyptian-Arabic Scholarship in Classics and Papyrology: Invisible or Marginalized?

I am not trying to get into detail of this large topic. My aim is just to record what I have found and then I will go back to this.  I have once twitted about this. 

It's usually reported, not infrequently with astonishing confidence, that the Egyptian school of Greco-Roman Studies is a peripheral. Yet I wonder how this conclusion came 2 exist while its publications r not included either n L'Année philologique o n Bibligraphie Papyrologique!

— Usama A. Gad (@usamaligad) November 20, 2018

L'Année philologique contains only 100 record of Arabic scholarship in the field, while Bibligraphie Papyrologique have almost no record.

Her is what I have found from L'Année philologique.

There is only 100 records.

Making Arabic-Egyptian and Non-Egyptian scholarship in Classics Visible

In my blog here you could browse hundreds of records which I have unsystematically been posting since 2014. In the spreadsheet below I recorded up till now over than 300 records of Egyptian scholarship in Classics and papyrology. I will be adding more in the coming months.

Here is the spreadsheet. It is in Arabic, but I will transcribe the titles into English and provide every record with an English Abstract. For non-Egyptians scholarship, I will translate the title into Arabic and provide the record with an Arabic abstract. Feel free to add to this list or send me your work about Egypt to make it visible in Arabic too.

1- Arabic-Egyptian Scholarship Records

There are now more than 300 records.

.

2- Arabic Translations of Greek and Latin

There are now 130 records.

Seneca's Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium in Arabic

Seneca's Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium in Arabic

by Muḥammad Salīm Sālim  in Humanity's Heritage, Cairo 1968

I have found an interesting introduction, not only to Seneca's Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium,  but to Seneca's life and treaties in general by Muḥammad Salīm Sālim, the head of my department, which dates back to 1968. Enjoy! 

Badawi: The Spring and Fall of Greek Thought

Badawi: The Spring and Fall of Greek thought

[Retrieved from Wikipedia English on 09/08/2019]

Abdur Rahman Badawi (Arabic: عبد الرحمن بدوى) (February 17, 1917 – July 25, 2002) was an Egyptian existentialistprofessor of philosophy and poet. He has been called the "foremost master of Arab existentialism." He authored more than 150 works, amongst them 75 which were encyclopaedic. He wrote easily in his native Arabic, English, Spanish, French, German and Italian, and read Greek, Latin and Persian. 

Listen to him speaking about himself below. And a good Arabic review of his career is to be found here عبد الرحمن بدوي.. من غياهب المخطوطات إلى الفيلولوجيا.

The Spring of Greek Thought,  Cairo 1943.

[Read it here in Archive.org :https://archive.org/details/plaintive27_gmail_20160603]

The Fall of Greek Thought

[Read the 1979 edition from Archive.org here: https://archive.org/details/elhilalymohamad_gmail_20180216_2020]

Greek Words in Arabic and their Etymology

Greek Words in Arabic and their Etymology

by Abdelmonem Abdel-Allah Khalaf Hamid Alsbbak ALDULAIMY

Amman 2018

                     Order from here: https://store.almanhal.com/106804.html

A Bibliography of Arabic Scholarship in Manuscript Studies

A Bibliography of Arabic Scholarship in Manuscript Studies

By Mohamed Fathy ABDELHADY

Cairo 2009

http://www.langue-arabe.fr/IMG/pdf/MAW_manuscriptsdalil.pdf

WHEN A SENATOR VISITS EGYPT, THE STUDENTS HAVE TO PREPARE THEIR TRANSLATIONS

WHEN A SENATOR VISITS EGYPT, THE STUDENTS HAVE TO PREPARE THEIR TRANSLATIONS

Reading the Arabic translation of Life in Egypt Under Roman Rule of Naphtali Lewis (Oxford University Press (1983), I find this Arabic translation of P.Tebt. I 33: Preparations for a Roman Visitor very useful for Egyptian students of papyrology to learn translation. A translation from Greek into English, English into Arabic, or from Greek into Arabic is a non trivial task. I can not remmebr when I first wrote this post, but her what I have done. [Your can find the Arabic book in my blog. I don't know exactly where but I do have a digital copy of it, if you want]

The first lines of the Arabic translation of Naphtali's English translation run smoothly i.e. almost word for word. However towards the middle of the text the Arabic translation diverts from the English original, so that I can not align most of the words. The words that I can not align are red in this visualisation: http://sosol.perseids.org/alpheios/app/align-editsentence-perseids.xhtml?doc=36376&s= 

The English translation of Lines 3-19 of the text runs, in Lewis, Life in Egypt (1983), S. 12 , as follow:

"Lucius Memmius, a Roman senator, who occupies a position of great dignity and honor, is making the voyage from Alexandria to the Arsinoite nome to see the sights. Let him be received with special magnificence, and take care that at the proper spots the chambers be prepared and the landing-places to them be got ready, and that the gifts of hospitality below written be presented to him at the landing-place, and that the furniture of the chamber, the customary tit-bits for Petesouchos and the crocodiles, the necessaries for the view of the Labyrinth, and the offerings and sacrifices be provided; in general take the greatest pains in everything that the visitor may be satisfied, and display the utmost zeal"

The Arabic translation in p. 15 of the translated book, runs as follow:

    

The Greek original runs as fellow: 

Λεύκιος Μέμμιος Ῥωμαῖος τῶν ἀπὸ
    συνκλήτου ἐν μίζονι (l. μείζονι) ἀξιώματι κα[ὶ] τιμῆι
5  κείμενος τὸν ἐκ τῆς π̣ό̣(λεως) ἀνάπλουν ἕως τοῦ Ἀρσι(νοίτου) νο(μοῦ)
    ἐπὶ θεωρίαν ποιούμενος μεγαλουπρεπέστερον(l. μεγαλοπρεπέστερον)
    ἐγδεχθήτωι(l. ἐγδεχθήτω), καὶ φρόντισον ὡς ἐπὶ τῶν
    καθηκόντων τόπων αἵ τε αὐλαὶ κατασκ̣ευα̣σ̣-
    [θ]ή̣σ̣[ο]ν̣ται καὶ αἱ ἀπ̣ὸ̣ τούτων ἐγβα(τηρίαι) ε̣[ ̣]ι̣ε̣[ ̣ ̣ ̣]
10 π̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ συντελεσθήσονται καὶ αὐτῶι προσ-
    ενεχ̣θ̣ήσε̣ται ἐπὶ τῆς ἐγβα(τηρίας) τὰ ὑπογεγρ(αμμένα) ξένια,
    καὶ τ[ὰ] εἰς τὸν τῆς αὐλῆς καταρτισμὸν
    καὶ τὸ γεινόμενον τῶι Πετεσούχωι καὶ τοῖς κροκο(δείλοις)
    ψω̣μ̣ί̣ον κ̣α̣ὶ̣ τὰ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ λαβυρίνθου θέαν
15 καὶ τ̣ὰ ̣[ ̣ ̣] ̣[ ̣ ̣ σ]ταθησόμενα θύματα καὶ τῆς
    θ̣υ̣σ̣ί̣[α]ς̣ ἡ̣ π̣α̣ρ̣ο̣χὴ̣ ο̣ἰ̣κ̣ο̣ν̣[όμη(?)]ται(?), τὸ δʼ ὅλον ἐ̣π̣ὶ̣ π̣ά̣ν̣[των]
    τὴν μεγίστην φροντίδα ποιουμενου (l. ποιούμενος) τοῦ εὐδοκοῦν̣[τ]α̣
    τὸν ἄ̣ν̣δ̣ρ̣α̣ κατασταθῆ[ναι] τὴν πᾶσαν προσενέγκαι
     σπουδὴ[ν]

OEDIPUS ON THE NILE: TRANSLATIONS AND ADAPTIONS OF SOPHOCLES' OEDIPUS TYRANNOS IN EGYPT, 1900-1970

OEDIPUS ON THE NILE

By Cormack, Raphael Christian (https://ergamegala.wordpress.com/)

[Retrieved from https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/23624 on 06/08/2010]

Between 1900 and 1970 seven different versions of Sophocles’ play Oedipus Tyrannos were performed or published in Arabic in Egypt. This thesis looks at the first 71 years’ history of this iconic Greek tragedy in Arabic and the ways it can be used to think through the cultural debates of the period. The long history of contact between Greece and Egypt and the 19th and 20th century interpretations of this history can be used to look at different models of colonial and post-colonial cultural interaction. Classicism offered Egyptian writers a constructive way of looking at their cultural identity and contemporary world – a way which takes in to account the legacies of colonialism but also engages Greek literature to create their own models of nationhood. Following the history of performance and adaptation of the play throughout the 20th century, this thesis offers close readings of the most prominent adaptations of Oedipus, particularly those of Farah Antun (whose text was used for Actor-Director George Abyad’s first version of the play in 1912), Tawfiq al-Hakim (1949), Ali Ahmed Bakathir (1949) and Ali Salem (1970). Using performance and translation theory, I show how performance of translated plays like Oedipus was a crucial but complex part of the formation of an Egyptian dramatic tradition through the dynamic interaction of diverse views of what the theatre should be, using, for instance, the role of singing in turn of the century drama. This thesis also revisits and revises misconceptions about the relationship between Islam and theatre. In addition to examining Egyptian Oedipus’ 19th and 20th century context, I also stress the contribution of performance and adaptation to readings of the original text. In particular, these versions of Oedipus ask questions about monarchical rule and democracy that form one link between this classical play and 20th century Egypt. Through its interdisciplinary approach as well as the close readings it offers, this thesis aims to make valuable contributions to the fields of Arabic Theatre Studies and Classical Reception in Colonial and Post-Colonial contexts as well as Performance and Translation Theory.

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/1842/23624

Download

https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/23624/Cormack2017.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Collections

• Literatures, Languages, and Cultures PhD thesis collection