Egyptomania
Egyptomania (CLSS 218) explored the ancient Greeks' and Romans' conceptual and imperial appropriation of Egypt as a field for their own self-definition. In the first part of the course, students made a diachronic study of primary literary and material sources from Greece and Rome, learning to apprehend their ideological underpinnings by engaging with recent scholarship informed by post-colonial and reception theory. In the second part of the course, the class embraced Washington, DC, as the living classroom for discovering the impact that the Greco-Roman discourses on Egypt exerted in nineteenth-century America. Students visited (public health guidance permitting) and studied such major products of American Egyptomania as the Washington Monument, the collections of Charles Lang Freer, and the “Evolution of Civilization” depicted on the Library of Congress’ dome. In both group presentations and final research papers, students articulated how the ancient texts we have studied influenced America's appropriation of Egypt as a powerful tool in the formation of empire and racial ideology. This course was taught by Brett Evans as a Doyle Seminar in spring 2022. Please refer to the current course catalog for an up-to-date description of the course.
