Jean-Luc Fournet - External lectures

Statutory lectures in France and abroad

2025-2026

Belgium

Free University of Brussels

In May 2026, a lecture (1h) on: A new papyrus from the Theban Magic Library.

Italy

École Normale Supérieure, Pisa

In May 2026, a lecture (1h) on: Aristophanes and Menander in Late Antiquity.

University of Pisa

In May 2026, two lectures (2h) on: An unpublished Orphic papyrus.

2024-2025

Italy

University of Pisa

On May 6, 2025, from 3 pm to 5 pm, a lecture on: A new Theban poetic papyrus.

Address: Sala Riunioni, Palazzo Venera, via Santa Maria 36

University of Salerno

On May 8, 2025, from 11am to 1pm, a lecture on: Two epics on papyrus (P. Berol. 9799+21154 and P.Flor. II 114): between Thebes and Arsinoe

Address: Campus di Fisciano, Sala Conferenza DIPSUM (edificio D3. 3° piano)

2023-2024

Italy

French School of Rome

In May and June 2024 four lectures (4h) on : The Greeks and hieroglyphics. The death of a script and the birth of a myth

Egyptian hieroglyphs were more than just a script used continuously by the Egyptians until the 4thcentury AD: well beyond the borders of the Nile Valley and long after the end of Pharaonic civilization, they aroused fascination, questions and fantasies. Written to communicate, they gradually took on the trappings of myth to become the paradigm of a form of writing designed to conceal unspeakable secrets. It wasn't until Champollion that this myth was shattered, but this did not put an end to the spell that Egypt and its mysteries still exert over us.

One work alone embodies the history of these Mediterranean wanderings, and will serve as the guiding thread on a journey that will take us from the banks of the Nile to those of the Tiber, by way of Constantinople: the Treatise on Hieroglyphics by the Greek philosopher Horapollon is thought to have been written in Egypt at a time when hieroglyphics were disappearing, and bears witness to the fascination of the Greeks for this ancient script. Rediscovered on an island in the Cyclades in 1419, it was brought back to Italy, where it nourished a veritable "hieroglyphilia", of which Rome, thanks to its Egyptian monuments, was for a long time the epicenter. But isn't this work, the only one on hieroglyphics from Greco-Roman antiquity, in turn a myth to be deconstructed?

  1. The end of hieroglyphic culture 
    Tuesday, May 21, 2024: French Embassy in Italy/Institutfrançais Italia, Palazzo Farnese, Salon d'Hercule (piazza Farnese 67)
     
  2. The Greeks and hieroglyphics: between fascination and bewilderment
    Monday, May 27, 2024: Académie de France à Rome - Villa Médicis (Viale della Trinità dei Monti, 1)
     
  3. Horapollon, the author of a Greek treatise on hieroglyphics? 
    Monday June 3, 2024: Fondazione Primoli (via Giuseppe Zanardelli, 1)
     
  4. The wanderings of deciphering: deconstructing myth
    Monday, June 10, 2024: Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Altemps (via di S. Apollinare, 8)

2022-2023

Belgium

Université Libre de Bruxelles

On May 15, 2023 from 2 to 4 pm, a conference on: Homerism in the culture of Late Antiquity.

Italy

University of Pisa

On May 24, 2023 from 5:45 to 7:30 pm, a conference on: Classical culture at the White Monastery (Egypt).

2020-2021

Belgium

Free University of Brussels

In December 2020 or April 2021, two lectures on: Homerism in the written culture of Late Antiquity.

Switzerland

University of Geneva

In May 2021, two lectures on: Words and forms: content and layout of Byzantine papyrological documents.

2019-2020

Belgium

Université Libre de Bruxelles

In December 2019 or April 2020, two lectures on: Homerism in the written culture of Late Antiquity.

Switzerland

University of Geneva

In May 2021, two lectures on: Words and forms: content and layout of Byzantine papyrological documents.

2018-2019

Belgium

Free University of Brussels. Department of Languages and Literature

Thursday, May 9, 2019 from 11am to 1pm, two lectures on: Latin in Byzantine Egypt.

United Kingdom

Oxford French House

On June 5, 2019, a lecture on: Homer and Late Antique Poetry in the Light of New Poems by Dioscorus of Aphrodite (Egypt, AD VI).

2017-2018

Italy

Istituto papirologico Girolamo Vitelli (Florence)

Tuesdays May 8, 15, 22 and 29, 2018 at 11 am, four lectures on: Il documento: un nuovo sguardo sulla cultura scritta della tarda Antichità :

  • May 8, 2018: I cambiamenti formali del documento alla fine dell'Antichità ;
  • May 15, 2018: La cristianizzazione dello scritto ;
  • May 22, 2018: La 'letterarizzazione' del documento;
  • May 29, 2018: La 'documentarizzazione''della letteratura.

United States

Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (New York)

On March 22, 29, April 5 and 12, 2017, four lectures on: Egyptian versus Greek in Late Antique Egypt: The Struggle of Coptic for an Official Status.