São Paulo – From June 4th to 6th, researchers and students in the field of history will be able to learn a little about the world of Pharaohs, in the city of Porto Alegre, capital of the state Rio Grande do Sul. The Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS) and the Goethe Institute are going to promote, in Porto Alegre, the 15th Study Journey on the Ancient East, under the theme “Dialogues with the Pharaonic world.” The meeting will count on the participation of Sylvia Schoske, director of the Egyptian Museum in Munich, in Germany.
“The target audience consists of young students who are seldom able to travel to congresses, and who have contacts with professors and researchers from other universities during the journeys. Students from other states of Brazil should attend all of the journeys, but attendance by foreign students is unlikely. Therefore, it is important for us to at least bring lecturers that speak other languages, because then the contact and knowledge of the students is extended beyond the walls of academia,” says the project coordinator, Margaret Marchiori Bakos.
Sylvia will give two lectures in Porto Alegre, one of them on the pedagogy of Egyptian museums, on June 4th, and the other on the Egyptian belief in the afterlife, on the 5th. The Egyptian collection in Germany will be the theme of another lecture, aside from Sylvia’s two, on the Egyptian collection at the Berlin Museum, to be given by professor Francisco Marshall, of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), on June 6th.
The journeys, which are held on an annual basis, are carried out by the Commission of Studies and Journeys on Ancient History (CEJHA), at PUC-RS, and also involve other sectors of the university. The first journey was held in 1995 as an initiative of professors and students at the History course of the School of Philosophy and Human Sciences. The meeting is turned to graduate and postgraduate students and researchers in History and related fields, and to people interested in studies on ancient and medieval societies.
In this event, together with the Study Journey on the Ancient East, there should be the 4th International Cycle of Ancient History Conferences, with a common programme. The meetings should take place at the Goethe Institute, which intermediated and made possible the trip by the director of the Egyptian Museum. Apart from Sylvia, talks should also be given by professors and doctors in Brazilian universities.
Professor Moacir Elias, of Fluminense Federal University (UFF), for example, is going to discuss theme "Support to Writing in the Near East", professor Cláudio Umpierre Carlan, of the Alfenas Federal University (Unifal), should speak about "Egypt and the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century", and professor Maria Regina Candido, of the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj) should discuss “Magic Practices in Classic Athens and along the Mediterranean", among others.
There should also be roundtables discussing themes like women in the time of the pharaohs, the writing of antiquity, Egyptmania and the cultures of the Mediterranean world. Goethe Institute, apart from promoting the event, is sponsoring it, together with the Foundation for Improvement of Higher Education Students (Capes). Further information may be obtained by telephone at (+55 51) 3320-3680, or on site www.pucrs.br/eventos/orienteantigo/
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum and Mark Ament
