The Curse of the Mummy

This talk focuses on a new UCSC Humanities course called “The Curse of the Mummy,” co-taught by Associate Professor of Literature Renée Fox and Associate Professor Elaine Sullivan. Combining analysis of 19th-century Egyptology’s transformation of ancient Egypt into a European fantasy with study of ancient Egyptian culture itself, the course relies on the collaborative expertise of an Egyptologist and a Victorian studies scholar to discover how and why the ancient past can become integral to contemporary identity, society, and aesthetics. The talk will focus on the genesis of the course, some of the bizarre mummy literature it covers, the ways it relates to Professor Fox’s and Professor Sullivan’s current (and very different) research, and why mummies are a perfect subject to think about the intersections and divergences between different Humanities disciplines.