Paper short abstract:

Egyptology is witnessing a shift of its perspective, from the study of ancient Egypt towards an appreciation of the entangled history of Egypt between Africa, Europe and the Middle East, past and present. This paper explores the potential of Egyptology for a shared thinking about an Afropean future.

Paper long abstract:

Egyptology was one of the most transnationally operating academic fields at the beginning of the 20th century, writes art historian and anthropologist Bénédicte Savoy in her book on the bust of the ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti that is displayed today in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. Her assessment rightly highlights the strongly interrelated involvement of European nation states and the US in the institutional and academic formation of Egyptology and in the intellectual appropriation of ancient Egypt for the cultural memory of "the West". Such narratives have traditionally overlooked the exclusionary effects of Egytology on the African context and the wider population of Egypt. Egyptian Pharaonism and Afrocentric interpretation of ancient Egypt have been politically driven responses to European Egyptology. This paper asks how transnationalism can be redefined positively to make Egyptology relevant to an inclusive Afropean future. It positions Egyptology in the long history of the Afropean world and addresses current perspectives on and approaches to a shared thinking about ancient Egypt. Given the many obstacles - inequalities within and among countries, Euro-American biases in global knowledge regimes, the entrenchment of academia and heritage in political and economic interests, currently rising nationalism in Europe - the paper is a tentative exploration of what "Egyptology in an Afropean world" might mean.