Demonic Bodies in the Christian East

The Coptic tradition, and the venerable city of Alexandria, are both well represented in this forthcoming book from Oxford early next year: Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture by Travis W. Proctor (Oxford UP, February 2022), 280pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this: 

Drawing insights from gender studies and the environmental humanities, Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture analyzes how ancient Christians constructed the Christian body through its relations to demonic adversaries. Through case studies of New Testament texts, Gnostic treatises, and early Christian church fathers (e.g., Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian of Carthage), Travis W. Proctor notes that early followers of Jesus construed the demonic body in diverse and sometimes contradictory ways, as both embodied and bodiless, “fattened” and ethereal, heavenly and earthbound.

Across this diversity of portrayals, however, demons consistently functioned as personifications of “deviant” bodily practices such as “magical” rituals, immoral sexual acts, gluttony, and pagan religious practices. This demonization served an exclusionary function whereby Christian writers marginalized fringe Christian groups by linking their ritual activities to demonic modes of (dis)embodiment. The tandem construction of demonic and human corporeality demonstrates how Christian authors constructed the bodies that inhabited their cosmos--human, demon, and otherwise--as part of overlapping networks or “ecosystems” of humanity and nonhumanity. Through this approach, Proctor provides not only a more accurate representation of the bodies of ancient Christians, but also new resources for reimagining the enlivened ecosystems that surround and intersect with our modern ideas of “self.”

Copts in Modernity

Remember those happy days when we could travel to international conferences? Remember how long the flight to Australia was? I do, but the older I get the less I like being shoe-horned onto an airplane with other hacking and sneezing people for any length of time, least of all for a long overseas flight. 

Nevertheless, a good conference at the other end is worth it, and this Melbourne conference from 2018 sounds like it had some of the leading Coptologists at it, whose papers are now gathered together in Copts in Modernity:Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium of Coptic Studies, Melbourne, 13-16 July 2018, eds., Elizabeth Agaiby, Mark N. Swanson, and Nelly van Doorn-Harder (Brill, 2021), 456pp. 

Part of their long-running series, Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity, this volume from Brill, they tell us, is 

a collection of essays – many of which contain unpublished archival material – showcasing historical and contemporary aspects pertaining to the Coptic Orthodox Church. The volume covers three main themes: The first theme, History, gathers studies that look back to the nineteenth and late eighteenth centuries to understand the realities of the twentieth and twenty-first; the second theme, Education, Leadership and Service, explores the role of religious education in the revival of the Church and how Coptic religious principles influenced the ideas of leadership and service that resulted in the Church’s spiritual revival; and the third theme, Identity and Material Culture, draws upon a broad range of material and visual culture to exemplify the role they play in creating and recreating identities. This volume brings together the work of senior and early career scholars from Australia, Europe, Egypt, and the United States.

The Art of Minorities

As a longtime defender and fan of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, especially the Armenian and Copts, I look forward to the reading a new book that features both of those traditions and others: The Art of Minorities: Cultural Representation in Museums of the Middle East and North Africa,ed .Virginie Rey (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 336pp. 

About this collection the publisher tells us this:

How are issues related to identity representation negotiated in Middle Eastern and North African museums? Can museums provide a suitable canvas for minorities to express their voice? Can narratives change and stereotypes be broken and, if so, what kind of identities are being deployed? Against the backdrop of the revolutionary upheavals that have shaken the region in recent years, the contributors to this volume interrogate a range of case studies from across the region – examining how museums engage inclusion, diversity and the politics of minority identities. They bring to the fore the region’s diversity and sketches a ‘museology of disaster’ in which minoritised political subjects regain visibility.

Preserving Coptic Heritage

The precarious plight of Coptic Christians in their homeland seems to be one of those depressing constants of Egypt today, as it has been for some time. Among the many worries about attacks on Copts and their churches are also questions of preserving Coptic heritage, treated in a new book: Egypt's Christian Heritage: Cultural Heritage Management and Egypt's Coptic Monuments by  Dan Heale (BAR Press, 2020), 184pp.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

The Christian cultural heritage of north Africa is ancient and rich, but at risk after recent political events. The Christian, Coptic heritage of Egypt remains poorly studied from the perspective of heritage management and is also at risk from a number of factors. Using first-hand study and analysis based upon original fieldwork, Egypt's Christian Heritage offers an assessment to the risks facing Coptic monuments in Egypt today. It does this by situating Egyptian heritage policy within the English framework, and it establishes theoretical approaches to value, significance, meaning, and interpretation in Egyptian heritage within a wider global framework. The research is based on the analysis of three markedly different Egyptian Christian Coptic sites, each with their own unique management issues. This book offers a series of solutions and ideas to preserve, manage and interpret this unique material culture and to emphasise community solutions as being the most viable and sustainable approaches, whilst taking into account the varied levels of significance of these monuments.

Coptic Archaelogy

I find there are many things to admire about the Copts, beginning with their steadfastness over many centuries in the face of changing political fortunes in Egypt under various imperial powers. They are also admirably concerned with the safeguarding of their patrimony, as well as its study and ongoing renewal. Too many Eastern Christians are often not good at telling their history in all its forms. Not so the Copts, as we see in another recent book focusing on Marcus Simaika Pasha: Father of Coptic Archaeology by Samir Simaika (American University of Cairo Press, 2017), 240pp.

About this book we are told:

Marcus Pasha Simaika (1864-1944) was born to a prominent Coptic family on the eve of the inauguration of the Suez Canal and the British occupation of Egypt. From a young age, he developed a passion for Coptic heritage and devoted his life to shedding light on centuries of Christian Egyptian history that had been neglected by ignorance or otherwise belittled and despised.

He was not a professional archaeologist, an excavator, or a specialist scholar of Coptic language and literature. Rather, his achievement lies in his role as a visionary administrator who used his status to pursue relentlessly his dream of founding a Coptic Museum and preserving endangered monuments. During his lengthy career, first as a civil servant, then as a legislator and member of the Coptic community council, he maneuvered endlessly between the patriarch and the church hierarchy, the Coptic community council, the British authorities, and the government to bring them together in his fight to save Coptic heritage.

This fascinating biography draws upon Simaika's unpublished memoirs as well as on other documents and photographs from the Simaika family archive to deepen our understanding of several important themes of modern Egyptian history: the development of Coptic archaeology and heritage studies, Egyptian-British interactions during the colonial and semi-colonial eras, shifting balances in the interaction of clergymen and the lay Coptic community, and the ever-sensitive evolution of relations between Copts and their Muslim countrymen.

Copts in Context

Nelly van Doorn-Harder's work on the Copts of Egypt is something I have been following for some time after having asked her to write a review for Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies several years ago. So I sit up and pay attention when she publishes a new book, as she did in September in hardcover and October of last year on Kindle: Copts in Context: Negotiating Identity, Tradition, and Modernity (University of South Carolina Press, 2017), 296pp.
 
About this collection, of which she is editor, the publisher tells us the following:

Though the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt is among the oldest Christian communities in the world, it remained relatively unknown outside of Egypt for most of its existence. In the wake of the Arab Spring, however, this community was caught up in regional violence, and its predicament became a cause for concern around the world. Copts in Context examines the situation of the Copts as a minority faith in a volatile region and as a community confronting modernity while steeped in tradition.

Nelly van Doorn-Harder opens Coptic identity and tradition to a broad range of perspectives: historical, political, sociological, anthropological, and ethnomusicological. Starting with contemporary issues such as recent conflicts in Egypt, the volume works back to topics—among them the Coptic language, the ideals and tradition of monasticism, and church historiography—that while rooted in the ancient past, nevertheless remain vital in Coptic memory and understanding of culture and tradition. Contributors examine developments in the Coptic diaspora, in religious education and the role of children, and in Coptic media, as well as considering the varied nature of Coptic participation in Egyptian society and politics over millennia.

With many Copts leaving the homeland, preservation of Coptic history, memory, and culture has become a vital concern to the Coptic Church. These essays by both Coptic and non-Coptic scholars offer insights into present-day issues confronting the community and their connections to relevant themes from the past, demonstrating reexamination of that past helps strengthen modern-day Coptic life and culture.

Northern Egyptian Christianity

So much of Christian monastic history is indebted to late antique Egypt, which continues justly to be the object of regular study, especially by Coptic scholars. A very impressive and wide-ranging group of them has collaborated to produce a substantial collection due out at the end of this month: Christianity and Monasticism in Northern Egypt: Beni Suef, Giza, and the Nile Delta, eds. Gawdat Gabra and Hany Takla (American University of Cairo Press, 2017), 384pp.

About this book we are told:

Christianity and monasticism have long flourished in the northern part of Upper Egypt and in the Nile Delta, from Beni Suef to the Mediterranean coast. The contributors to this volume, international specialists in Coptology from around the world, examine various aspects of Coptic civilization in northern Egypt over the past two millennia. The studies explore Coptic art and archaeology, architecture, language, and literature. The artistic heritage of monastic sites in the region is highlighted, attesting to their important legacies.

Coptic Culture and Knowledge

I finished a discussion with my students just two short weeks ago now looking at Coptic-Muslim relations in Egypt, and allowed myself a very cautious expression of hope that perhaps under President el-Sisi we were seeing long-overdue signs of improvement in treatment of the Coptic Church in Egypt--that was before the attack on the cathedral in Cairo this Sunday. Copts, as I stressed in class, have been in it for the long haul, and know, more than just about anybody else, the costs of living long-term under Islam. Theirs is a venerable culture with an extensive and impressive history, some of it told in this new book, Studies in Coptic Culture: Transmission and Interaction, Mariam Ayad, ed. (American University of Cairo Press, 2016), 288pp.

About this book we are told:

Coptic contributions to the formative theological debates of Christianity have long been recognized. Less well known are other, equally valuable, Coptic contributions to the transmission and preservation of technical and scientific knowledge, and a full understanding of how Egypt's Copts survived and interacted with the country's majority population over the centuries. Studies in Coptic Culture attempts to examine these issues from divergent perspectives.

Through the careful examination of select case studies that range in date from the earliest phases of Coptic culture to the present day, twelve international scholars address issues of cultural transmission, cross-cultural perception, representation, and inter-faith interaction. Their approaches are as varied as their individual disciplines, covering literary criticism, textual studies, and comparative literature as well as art historical, archaeo-botanical, and historical research methods. The divergent perspectives and methods presented in this volume will provide a fuller picture of what it meant to be Coptic in centuries past and prompt further research and scholarship into these subjects.