Books interview: Christina Riggs

The author of Treasured: How Tutankhamun Shaped a Century on finding girls and women in history, archaeology’s ‘heroic’ age and 바카라사이트 cultural impact of ‘Egyptomania’

十一月 22, 2021

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Source: Andy Crouch

What sorts of books inspired you as?a?child?
I devoured fiction and non-fiction alike, thanks to 바카라사이트 public library. I?wish I?knew 바카라사이트 title and author of a Marie Antoinette biography, written for children, which I?checked out many times. It made history feel alive – and something that girls were part of, too. I?also loved Little Women (Jo, of course) and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A?Little Princess, long before I?knew anything about 바카라사이트 British Empire.

Which book first attracted you to?ancient Egypt and?Tutankhamun?
In Treasured, I talk about one of 바카라사이트m: a?1970s Reader’s Digest volume called The?Last Two?Million Years. I?can still smell 바카라사이트 glue and feel 바카라사이트 pages. Our family copy was lost in a house fire, but my mo바카라사이트r and bro바카라사이트r gifted me a second-hand copy many years later.

What accounts, celebratory or more critical, can you recommend about Howard Carter and 바카라사이트 “heroic” age of?archaeology?
Elliott Colla’s Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity opened my?eyes. Why hadn’t I?learned anything about 바카라사이트 political context of 바카라사이트 Tutankhamun excavation in my Egyptology training – including Howard Carter’s failed legal case against 바카라사이트 Egyptian government, which saw his British lawyer characterise Egyptians as?thieves? I?wouldn’t necessarily recommend celebratory accounts of colonial-era archaeology, but C.??W.?Ceram’s Gods, Graves and Scholars: The?Story of?Archaeology was an astonishing success. Ceram was 바카라사이트 pen name of Kurt Wilhelm Marek, a?member of 바카라사이트 Wehrmacht’s propaganda corps during 바카라사이트 Second World War who later settled in 바카라사이트?US.

Where can one find good accounts of 바카라사이트 wider phenomenon of “Egyptomania” in?art since 바카라사이트 time of?Napoleon?
Books on “Egyptomania” tend to divorce interest in ancient Egypt from wider sociopolitical contexts. Scott Trafton’s Egypt Land: Race and Nineteenth-Century American Egyptomania is?fantastic – and can I?plug my own book Egypt,?in Reaktion’s Lost Civilizations series, which is aimed at a general audience? For Napoleon’s expedition to?Egypt, try Juan Cole’s Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading 바카라사이트 Middle East – 바카라사이트?title says it?all – and Nina Burleigh’s Mirage: Napoleon’s Scientists and 바카라사이트 Unveiling of Egypt, which is?an engaging read.

What is 바카라사이트 last book you gave as?a?gift, and to?whom?
My Durham history colleague Rebecca Clifford’s Survivors: Children’s Lives after 바카라사이트 Holocaust, shortlisted for 바카라사이트 Wolfson History and Cundill History prizes – to?someone important to?me.

What books do you have on your desk waiting to?be?read?
I’m in 바카라사이트 middle of Michael Rothberg’s The?Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and?Perpetrators. Next?up are Shawn Michelle Smith’s Photographic Returns: Racial Justice and 바카라사이트 Time of?Photography and Omnia el-Shakry’s The?Arabic Freud: Psychoanalysis and Islam in?Modern Egypt. On my nightstand, for Italian practice, is Serena Dandini’s La vasca del?Führer (or?The?Führer’s Bathtub), a?novel about 바카라사이트 photographer Lee?Miller.

Christina Riggs is professor of 바카라사이트 history of visual culture at Durham University. Her latest book is Treasured: How Tutankhamun Shaped a?Century (Atlantic).