On Friday, 9 July and Saturday, 10 July 2021, Thammasat University students are cordially invited to join a free online workshop exploring the reception and reconstruction of Egypt in science fiction, fostering a dialogue among Egyptologists, cultural historians, literary scholars, and creative practitioners.
The workshop begins at 3pm Bangkok time on Friday 9 July. It is entitled Do ancient Egyptians dream of electric sheep?
The title of the workshop refers to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a science fiction novel by the American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in 1968.
The Thammasat University Library collection includes two copies of the Thai translation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
They are shelved in the Fiction Stacks of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus, and the Puey Ungphakorn Library, Rangsit campus.
The TU Library also owns a wide range of books about different aspects of the history and culture of Egypt as well as analysis of traditions in science fiction.
TU students are recommended to view sessions that start in afternoon time in Bangkok, or early morning in the United Kingdom (UK).
The event is presented by the University of Birmingham, UK.
As the event website explains,
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) – a milestone in the history of the science fiction genre – the eponymous scientist is horrified when the creature he has assembled from assorted body parts is successfully animated. ‘A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch’, Frankenstein relates. This comparison – between a figure who represents the potential disastrous consequences of cutting-edge scientific enquiry and the bodies of the ancient Egyptian dead – is one that recurs later in the novel. Having dispatched his creator, the creature’s ‘vast hand’ is described as ‘in colour and apparent texture like that of a mummy’. Nearly two centuries later, Roland Emmerich’s Stargate (1994) also depicts ancient Egyptian bodies in settings infused with a futuristic aesthetic; alien entities acquire human forms in order to extend their lifespans, while sarcophagi are reimagined as regeneration chambers.
Science fiction has undeniably contributed to creating an image of ancient Egypt, and yet it is only starting to be addressed by Egyptological scholarship. Literature, theatre, film, television, comics, and video games all present images of Egypt that have had an enduring impact on perceptions of Egypt by the public. Nevertheless, and despite the involvement of experts in contributing to or shaping these cultural products – in Stargate’s case, in professional Egyptological consultation with regards to written and spoken Ancient Egyptian – the ways in which Egyptological scholarship informs science fiction in particular still remain to be explored. How might Egyptologists engage with this material beyond judging its historical authenticity? And to what extent can science fiction contribute to scholarly discussions of ancient Egypt?
The aim of this workshop is to explore the reception and reconstruction of Egypt in science fiction, fostering a dialogue among Egyptologists, cultural historians, literary scholars, and creative practitioners. The organisers are keen to receive abstracts from scholars coming from a variety of academic perspectives and diverse backgrounds, and who are interpreting science fiction in its broadest sense, including those informed by ancient Egyptian understandings of science…
Topics might include but are not limited to:
The origins and historical development of SF’s fascination with Egypt
Archaeology and out-of-place artefacts
Time and space travel
Parallel universes or alternate histories
Steampunk
Afrofuturism
Dystopia, apocalypse or post-apocalypse
The ethics of ‘ahistorical’ representation
The workshop schedule includes a number of subjects of wide-ranging interest, such as Beneath The Necron Masks: Ancient Egypt in Sci-Fi Game Mechanics discussed by Mr. James Baillie of the University of Vienna, Austria.
Mr. Baillie is a digital humanities scholar, medieval historian and PhD student at the University of Vienna, where his primary work is on the prosopography of the high medieval Caucasus. He is also interested in representations of history in games: he teaches a seminar on medievalism in computer games, have run a workshop entitled Coding Medieval Worlds on much the same topic, and also develop hobby computer and tabletop games in his spare time.
The abstract of his presentation reads as follows:
Egyptian evocations in science-fiction exist in computer games as much as anywhere in sci-fi: games are a key context through which modern science-fiction is experienced and can contain a wide range of cues to evoke particular implied settings or analogies. Examinations of historical material in games of all kinds are, consequently, an increasingly common academic pursuit. However, these analyses frequently focus largely on aesthetic representations, which are only one part of the ludic experience. Equally important in representations or evocations of imagined pasts are the models of game rules and AI that define arguments about how the world works – to take the common game use of warfare, what a soldier looks like is an aesthetic question, but the effect of war on that soldier and the world around them is largely a mechanics question.
In this paper, I will seek to briefly explore whether Egyptian-inspired science fiction in games, focusing on the Necrons of the Dawn of War games but considering other titles too in passing, can be considered mechanically rather than just aesthetically Egyptian. This will focus mainly on whether particular special rules, unit types and attributes, and other similar structural mechanics of the game help in reflecting popularly held ideas and tropes about ancient Egyptian culture and society, especially ideas like an emphasis on slave underclasses, pharaonic autocracy and supremacy, fascination with death and preservation, and the association between ancient Egypt and technological advancement, all of which feature heavily in popular understandings of Egypt.
In another lecture related to video games, Dr. Ilaria Cariddi, a research fellow at the University of Florence, Italy, will speak about Pyramids, Obelisks, and a Technological Armour: The Fictionality of Ancient Egypt in Tomb Raider.
Dr. Cariddi earned a PhD in the Science of Antiquities with a dissertation on Egyptology.
She is an expert on papyrus, a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface.
Her presentation abstract follows:
The highly acclaimed videogame series Tomb Raider has prominently featured ancient Egyptian archaeological locations since its first 1996 instalment (and its 2007 remake Anniversary), while its fourth, The Last Revelation (1999), is completely set in Egypt, with a rich range of historically varied sceneries, from the Valley of the Kings to the Karnak temple complex, the underwater ruins of Alexandria, and, obviously, the Giza plateau. As per usual in the series, the plot of both games relies on alternative archaeology theories, out-of-place artifacts, superhuman entities with science-fiction-like powers, and myths reimagined with a touch of technology – even though, in the case of The Last Revelation, there is a conscious effort of inserting these elements in a believable lore, and for offering less conventional experiences of ancient Egypt, as with the Ptolemaic reconstructions. The present contribution is aimed to discuss by what means these games build on mainstream sci-fi and fantastic preconceptions on pharaonic religion, knowledge, craftsmanship and aesthetic. A study on the reasons why and how this medium perpetuates the undying need for ‘more’ than traditional archaeology, and its challenging balance between accuracy and the allure of adventure, can lead to several considerations on the role of videogames in the access to antiquity, and the weight of science fiction in the modern receptions of ancient Egypt.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)