Dialogue, Debate or Argument: Reconsidering a 19th Century (BCE) Classic

Understanding remotely ancient texts entails intricate problems. Philological exactitude is sometimes at odds with a translator’s (viz. “reader’s”) thirst for audience with a voice from the distant past. This talk looks at the text on a papyrus commonly known as “The Debate between a Man and His Ba .” It is considered a great — perhaps the greatest — literary and/or philosophical text to survive from ancient Egypt. It contends that its reception in most Egyptological scholarship has been hampered by trying too hard to make sense. The challenge begins right with the title and generic presumptions of a “debate.”

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Co-hosted with: Princeton Institute for International & Regional Studies

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