Faculty of Theology – University of Oslo

APOCRYPHA

Storyworlds in Transition: Coptic Apocrypha

in Changing Contexts in the Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods

Description and organization

This project studies Coptic apocrypha as transnarrative, transmedial, and transauthorial products of Egyptian, especially monastic, Christianity. The project approaches the material using theories and methods inspired by a combination of material philology, literary and media studies perspectives, and cognitive science. In contrast with common and traditional approaches to apocrypha, this project treats Coptic apocrypha, without chronological boundaries, as major contributors to dynamic and ongoing processes of world-building, extending and developing the Christian storyworld in ways that were profoundly coupled with, and which had important ramifications for, the beliefs and practices of Egyptian Christians over a thousand-year period stretching from late antique and Byzantine times until the early Islamic period, thus spanning the entire period of Coptic literary production.

(Texte by the organizers)

Link

https://www.tf.uio.no/english/research/projects/apocrypha/