The aim of the “Sex and Gender in Ancient Egypt: Roles, norms and transgressions” conference, to be held in Paris on 12 and 13 June 2025, is, through the various communications which will be proposed, to establish an overview of the issues surrounding gender roles and sex relations in Ancient Egypt.
This approach is in keeping with the work of gender studies carried out over the last sixty years in the fields of anthropology, sociology and history of sex and gender, from the founding work of the so-called “French school” (N. Claude-Mathieu, C. Guillaumin,
Fr. Héritier, M. Perrot) to the work of the Anglo-Saxon school of the 1990s and 2000s (A. Oakley, J.W. Scott, G. Rubin, J. Butler and R. Connell).
Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, Egyptologists have used the framework of gender studies to study the gendered differences between women and men in art, literature, society and language. This work has also sought to shed light on the mechanisms of the social relationship between men and women in ancient Egypt, based on a discourse of valence différentielle between the sexes. In addition, in certain contexts, this work
has made it possible to identify the real capacity for action (or agentivity) of women in Egyptian society, according to other criteria such as social status or age.
Following on from this initial movement, other researchers have also taken an interest in questions of sexuality, in particular sexualities outside the spectrum of (hetero)sexual norms, thus inaugurating the field of queer studies in Egyptology. A number of studies on
gender relations from the perspective of Egyptian masculinities have also emerged. In parallel with these case studies, a number of works and review publications have been published with the aim of establishing the potential contribution of gender archaeology or gender history to Egyptology. Since then, this field of study has been constantly renewed in Egyptology, thanks to in-depth work on the subject, ranging from monographs to articles and doctoral dissertations.
This conference is also in line with the recent conferences devoted to women and their roles in ancient Egypt (Cairo, 2022), to provide a complementary synthetic position on the contribution of gender studies to this discipline.
The conference will address topics as diverse as the construction of masculinities and femininities; the relations between gender and language; the gendered conceptions of the divine; the role of women in religion and in productive spaces; gender at the
origins of Egypt; and gendered representations in art and literature. The submitted contributions may come from fields as varied as history, art history, archaeology or linguistics, from the perspective of gender, sexuality and queer studies.
Presentations should be given in English or French, each lasting 20 minutes, with 10 minutes for questions. As the conference will take place on site, face-to-face presentations will be privileged.
Submissions should take the form of an abstract of approximately 500 words, giving the title of the paper, the name of the author and his/her institutional affiliation. Doctoral students are invited to specify the subject and direction of their thesis.
All applications must be sent to the following e-mail address colloquegenresexualite@gmail.
If you have any questions or require further information, please contact us at the above mentioned e-mail address.
