Ancient Egypt has always been a source of fascination to writers, artists and architects in the West. This book is the first study to address representations of Ancient Egypt in the modern imagination, breaking down conventional disciplinary boundaries between fields such as History, Classics, Art History, Fashion, Film, Archaeology, Egyptology, and Literature to further a nuanced understanding of ancient Egypt in cultures stretching from the eighteenth century to the present day, emphasising how some of the various meanings of ancient Egypt to modern people have traversed time and media.
Divided into three themes, the chapters scrutinise different aspects of the use of ancient Egypt in a variety of media, looking in particular at the ways in which Egyptology as a discipline has influenced representations of Egypt, ancient Egypt's associations with death and mysticism, as well as connections between ancient Egypt and gendered power. The diversity of this study aims to emphasise both the multiplicity and the patterning of popular responses to ancient Egypt, as well as the longevity of this phenomenon and its relevance today.
Author(s): Eleanor Dobson; Nichola Tonks
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: xiv+366
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Figures
Contributors
Introduction
Part I The Egyptological Imaginary
Chapter 1 ‘Wonderful Things’ in Kingston upon Hull
Chapter 2 ‘Let Sleeping Scarabs Alone’: When Egypt Came to Stonehenge
Chapter 3 3 ‘Mummy First: Statue After’: Wyndham Lewis, Diffusionism, Mosaic Distinctions and the Egyptian Origins of Art
Chapter 4 Ancient Egypt in William S. Burroughs’s Novels
Chapter 5 Between Success and Controversy: Christian Jacq and the Marketing of ‘Egyptological’ Fiction
Part II Death and Mysticism
Chapter 6 Egyptomania, English Pyramids and the Quest for Immortality
Chapter 7 Obituaries and Obelisks: Egyptianizing Funerary Architecture and the Cemetery as a Heterotopic Space
Chapter 8 Tutankhartier: Death, Rebirth and Decoration; Or, Tutmania in the 1920s as a Metaphor for a Society in Recovery after World War One
Chapter 9 Celtic Egyptians: Isis Priests of the Lineage of Scota
Chapter 10 Jack the Ripper and the Mummy’s Curse: Ancient Egypt in From Hell
Part III Gender and Sexuality
Chapter 11 From Sekhmet to Suffrage: Ancient Egypt in Early Twentieth-Century Women’s Culture
Chapter 12 ‘The Use of Old Objects’: Ancient Egypt and English Writers around 1920
Chapter 13 Women Surrealists and Egyptian Mythology: Sphinxes, Animals and Magic
Chapter 14 Egyptian Excesses: Taylor, Burton and Cleopatra
Chapter 15 The Mummy, the Priestess and the Heroine: Embodying and Legitimating Female Power in 1970s Girls’ Comics
Notes
Introduction
1 ‘Wonderful Things’ in Kingston upon Hull
2 ‘Let Sleeping Scarabs Alone’: When Egypt Came to Stonehenge
3 ‘Mummy First: Statue After’: Wyndham Lewis, Diffusionism, Mosaic Distinctions and the Egyptian Origins of Art
4 Ancient Egypt in William S. Burroughs’s Novels
5 Between Success and Controversy: Christian Jacq and the Marketing of ‘Egyptological’ Fiction
6 Egyptomania, English Pyramids and the Quest for Immortality
7 Obituaries and Obelisks: Egyptianizing Funerary Architecture and the Cemetery as a Heterotopic Space
8 Tutankhartier: Death, Rebirth and Decoration; Or, Tutmania in the 1920s as a Metaphor for a Society in Recovery after World War One
9 Celtic Egyptians: Isis Priests of the Lineage of Scota
10 Jack the Ripper and the Mummy’s Curse: Ancient Egypt in From Hell
11 From Sekhmet to Suffrage: Ancient Egypt in Early Twentieth-Century Women’s Culture
12 ‘The Use of Old Objects’: Ancient Egypt and English Writers around 1920
13 Women Surrealists and Egyptian Mythology: Sphinxes, Animals and Magic
14 Egyptian Excesses: Taylor, Burton and Cleopatra
15 The Mummy, the Priestess and the Heroine: Embodying and Legitimating Female Power in 1970s Girls’ Comics
Bibliography
Index
