Résumé
In this seminar we present the new ERC-funded project Education in Graeco-Roman Egypt: An Intercultural Approach (EduGRE, Consolidator Grant no. 101171610, October 2025-September 2030). Based at the University of Exeter, UK, this project aims to shed new light on educational practices in Graeco-Roman and late antique Egypt through a holistic approach that integrates evidence in different languages (Demotic, Greek, Latin, Coptic) and explores intercultural dialogue as well as local and chronological variation in learning practices.
One of EduGRE's focus areas is education in Late Antiquity, particularly the impact of Christianity on the educational landscape. In the second part of the seminar, we present a series of case studies that illustrate both the adaptive transformation of educational practices and the emergence of new contexts and agents of education. While often preserving traditional structures and pedagogical methods, these adaptations entailed a substantial reformulation of curricular content and exemplify processes of ‘anchoring innovation’, whereby change is grounded in established frameworks. Education thus emerges as a key site of cultural negotiation, shaped by the tension between the authority of a prestigious tradition and emerging moral and religious sensibilities.
