Strange Dogs: On the history of Conversion, “Joseph and Aseneth”, and travelling texts

Description

This is the final CRASSH Fellows Work in Progress Seminar for the term. Simon Goldhill, Director of CRASSH, Professor in Greek Literature and Culture, and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge is presenting. All welcome but please email Michelle Maciejewska to book your place and to request readings.  A sandwich lunch and refreshments are provided.

This paper will look at a very strange text from antiquity – from probably around the year 0 – that tells the story of Joseph and his marriage to Aseneth (familiar from a line in the bible) as an eroticised novel. It is a crucial text in the history of conversion, the history of how texts travel, and the history of scholarship on conversion…and some strange dogs.