Women and Gender in Ancient Egypt: Artifact, Text, Image
(UC 150 004)
Tuesday, Thursday 10-11:30am, Kelsey Museum Classroom

On-Line syllabus

Instructor: Terry Wilfong


NOTE: This on-line syllabus is for a course that finished on 12 December 1996. As such, information about the availability of textbooks, reserve materials, etc. is no longer valid. I have updated links when possible and hope to add on-line versions of some student projects from class.

In a very real sense, a seminar such as this is a collaborative effort between instructor and student, and I would like to thank my students for their willingness to discuss and interact over the course of this term, and for their interest and enthusiasm.

TGW, 19 December 1996


Required Textbooks:
Available from Shaman Drum Bookstore (313 South State Street Upstairs):

  • Gay Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt (*HQ 1137 E3 R631 1993)
  • Sarah Pomeroy, Women in Hellenistic Egypt (*HQ 1137 E3 R631 1993)

  • Available from Kelsey Museum Publications

  • Janet Richards and Terry Wilfong, Preserving Eternity

  • Available after 19 September from Accucopy (402 Maynard; 1 block west of Kelsey):

  • COURSEPACK for UC 150 004 (Wilfong)

  • Optional Texts:
    Available from Shaman Drum Bookstore (313 South State Street Upstairs):

  • Joyce Tyldesley, Daughters of Isis (*HQ 1137 E3 T95 1994)
  • Mary Hamer, Signs of Cleopatra (*PN57 C55 H361 1993)

  • *Also available in Undergraduate Reserve under call number listed


    Course Requirements:

  • Attendance
  • Readings
  • Participation in Discussions
  • 4 writing assignments


  • On-Line Resources:
    Go to On-Line Bibliography on Women in the Ancient Near East
    Go to "DIOTIMA: Women and Gender in the Ancient World"
    Go to "ABZU" (Guide to Electronic Resources in the Ancient Near East)
    Visit Kelsey Museum On-Line


    Readings, Assignments, Dicussion topics

    1. September 3
    Introduction: Women and Gender in Ancient Egypt

    2. September 5
    Ancient Egypt: Orientation, Themes, Perceptions, Evidence
    Women's Studies, Gender Studies, Ancient Egypt

  • Reading: Handout from 3 September

  • 3. September 10
    Text, Artifact and Image: Categories of Evidence

  • Reading: ROBINS, 11-20

  • 4. September 12
    Gender and the Divine: Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt
    Museum Gallery Visit

  • Reading: RICHARDS & WILFONG, 9-32

  • 5. September 17
    Egyptian Kingship/Queenship
    Gender and Politics in Ancient Egypt

  • Reading: ROBINS, 21-55

  • 6. September 19
    Marriage and the Alternatives in Egypt
    Gender and the Life Cycle in Egypt

  • Readings: ROBINS, 56-91
  • RICHARDS & WILFONG, 43-46

  • 7. September 24
    Gender and Sexuality in Ancient Egypt

  • Readings: ROBINS-3
  • Family and Home in Egypt

  • Readings: ROBINS, 92-110
  • WILFONG

  • 8. September 26
    Outside the Home in Egypt

  • Readings: ROBINS, 111-126
  • WARD

  • 9. October 1
    Gender and the Economy in Egypt

  • Readings: ROBINS 127-141
  • MENU

  • 10. October 3
    Gender and Religion in Egypt

  • Readings: ROBINS, 142-175
  • JOHNSON 1-2
  • LICHTHEIM II 197-99
  • SIMPSON 289-95

  • 11. October 8
    Gender in stories and poems

  • Readings: SIMPSON 15-30, 92-126
  • LICHTHEIM II 181-193
  • First Writing Assignment Due

    12. October 10
    Knowledge, Gender and Power in Egypt

  • Readings: PARKINSON texts #s 15, 38, 20, 49
  • BORGHOUTS texts #s 1, 5, 7, 44, 46, 49, 60-64, 84, 87, 90-92
  • LICHTHEIM II 135-46

  • 13. October 15
    Reading People's Mail for Gender

  • Readings: WENTE texts, in the following groups:
  • WENTE #s 24-26, 34 (letters and royalty)
    WENTE #s 68-71, 75 (Hekanakhte and contemporaries)
    WENTE #s 117, 120, 155 (individual letters)
    WENTE #s 177-189, 196-206, 219-235 (Deir el Medina)
    WENTE #s 288-289, 327-331 (LRL)
    WENTE #s 341-352 (Letters to the Dead)


    14. October 17
    Gendered Images in Egypt

  • Readings: ROBINS, 176-189
  • Readings: ROBINS-2

  • 15. October 22
    Gender in the Text: Discussion of ancient documents

  • JOHNSON 3-37

  • 16. October 24
    Reinterpretation: Gender in Pharaonic Egypt from Feminist Perspectives

  • Discussion

  • 17. October 29
    Women and Gender in Graeco-Roman Egypt: Introduction

  •  
  • Second Writing Assignment Due

    18. October 31
    Queens, Kings and Power in Graeco-Roman Egypt

  • Readings: POMEROY, 3-40
  • LICHTHEIM III 90-94, 151-56

  • 19. November 5 Cleopatra VII (The Famous one)

  • Readings: HUGHES-HALLETT (COURSEPACK 194-217)

  • 20. November 7
    Other Women of Power in Graeco-Roman Egypt

  • Readings: POMEROY, 41-82
  • LICHTHEIM III 58-65

  • 21. November 12
    Marriage and Family in Graeco-Roman Egypt

  • Readings: POMEROY, 83-124
  • LICHTHEIM III 184-93
  • Third Writing Assignment Due

    22. November 14
    Gender and Sexuality in Graeco-Roman Egypt

  • Readings: LICHTHEIM III 127-38
  • Women in Religion

  • Readings: LICHTHEIM III 107-08, 116-121

  • 23. November 19
    Gender, Work, Status, Economy

  • Readings: POMEROY, 125-173
  • JOHNSON 38-49

  • 24. November 21
    Women and Gender in Egypt under early Christianity

  • In-class session with artifacts for "Women and Gender" exhibition

  • 25. November 26
    Modern Popular Perceptions of Gender in Egypt

  • Discussion of 19th and 20th century novels and plays dealing with gender in ancient Egypt (Go to list)
  • In-class session with artifacts for "Women and Gender" exhibition

  • THANKSGIVING (November 28)--NO CLASS

    26. December 3
    Orientalism, Egyptomania and other factors

  • In-class session with artifacts for "Women and Gender" exhibition
  • Screening of excerpts from "The Egyptian"

  • Lecture: Lana Troy (December 4)

    27. December 5
    Afrocentrist perspectives: The Empowering Egyptian Woman

  • Readings: HALEY
  • CLARKE
  • LUMPKIN
  • ROTH

  • 28. December 10
    Conclusion and Wrap-up: Women and Gender in Egypt

     

    FINAL PAPERS DUE


    BIBLIOGRAPHY:

    BORGHOUTS=J. F. Borghouts, Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978)

    CLARKE="African Warrior Queens," In Ivan van Sertima, editor, Black Women in Antiquity, revised edition (New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Books, 1989): 123-134

    HALEY=Shelley P. Haley, "Black Feminist Thought and Classics: Re-membering, Re-claiming, Re-empowering," In Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz and Amy Richlin, editors, Feminist Theory and the Classics (New York, Routledge, 1993): 23-43

    HUGHES-HALLETT=Lucy Hughes-Hallett, "Cleopatra's Version," In Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions (New York: Harper and Row, 1990): 70-110 + notes

    JOHNSON=Egyptian texts adapted or translated and annotated by Janet H. Johnson, University of Chicago (note: these texts also available via world wide web: http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/jjwaesyll.html)

    LICHTHEIM II=Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977)

    LICHTHEIM III=Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature III (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980)

    LUMPKIN=Beatrice Lumpkin, "Hypatia and Women's Rights in Ancient Egypt," In Ivan van Sertima, editor, Black Women in Antiquity, revised edition (New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Books, 1989): 155-161

    MENU=Bernadette Menu, "Women and Business Life in the First Millennium B. C.," In Barbara S. Lesko, editor, Women's Earliest Records (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989): 192-207

    PARKINSON=R. B Parkinson, Voices from Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Middle Kingdom Writings (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991)

    POMEROY=Women in Hellenistic Egypt: From Alexander to Cleopatra, 2nd edition (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990)

    RICHARDS & WILFONG=Janet Richards and Terry Wilfong, Preserving Eternity: Modern Goals, Ancient Intentions. Egyptian Funerary Artifacts in the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, (Ann Arbor: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, 1995)

    ROBINS=Gay Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993)

    ROBINS-2=Gay Robins, "Some Images of Women in New Kingdom Art and Literature," In Barbara S. Lesko, editor, Women's Earliest Records (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989): 104-121

    ROBINS-3=Gay Robins, "Ancient Egyptian Sexuality," In Discussions in Egyptology 11 (1988): 61-72

    ROTH=Ann Macy Roth, "Building Bridges to Afrocentrism: A Letter to My Egyptological Colleagues," from Newsletter of the American Research Center in Egypt.

    SIMPSON=William K. Simpson, editor, Literature of Ancient Egypt, second edition (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1973)

    WARD=William A. Ward, "Non-Royal Women and their Occupations in the Middle Kingdom," In Barbara S. Lesko, editor, Women's Earliest Records (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989): 33-45

    WENTE=Edward F. Wente, Letters from Ancient Egypt, Writings from the Ancient World (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990)

    WILFONG=Summary of T. G. Wilfong, "Synchronous Menstruation and the 'Place of Women' in Ancient Egypt (Hieratic Ostracon Oriental Institute Museum 13512)" in Emily Teeter and John Larson, eds. Gold of Praise: Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization (Chicago: Oriental Institute Press), forthcoming.