Self, state and science: Exploring the tensions of a mid-20th century Coptologist in the Doresse archives
(2021) Pyramids and Progress — Location: Leuven and Brussels (8.November.2021)
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- Authors
Van de Ven, Annelies 
- Abstract
- The period between the end of the second world war and the outbreak of the 1952 revolution was a tumultuous one for foreign scholars working in Egypt. Between personal rivalries, international power shifts and a swift emergence of new scientific specialisations, individual actors in the field were constantly having to play off various allegiances in an attempt to retain their influence. Nowhere is this more evident than in the career of French Egyptologist Jean Doresse (1917-2007). His letters to colleagues in Egypt and abroad between 1947 and 1953 show how he worked to retain his own privileged position in relation to local actors in the government, the museum and the antiquities market, while taking on a role as a middleman to the divergent nationalistic efforts of distinct French academic institutions. Thus, his personal manoeuvrings eschew essentialist assumptions about unified national blocs with shared aims. In addition to the contents of his letters, the physical presence of his archive, its intentional preservation and deposition in the aftermath of these events provide further context to our reading. An analysis of the correspondence provided as an assemblage, thus sheds light onto Doresse’s own role in mediating the archival narrative. In combining these two approaches, one historical and one material, this paper will provide a more holistic take on how such documentary traces can be used across Egyptological archives to critically consider the tensions between personal and institutional motives for foreign academic agents in the period immediately before the revolution.
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Citations
Van de Ven, A. (2021). Self, state and science: Exploring the tensions of a mid-20th century Coptologist in the Doresse archives. Pyramids and Progress, Leuven and Brussels. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/213652