The College congratulates Professor Richard B. Parkinson who has been awarded one of 11 Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowships by the British Academy for the year 2023-24.
The Senior Research Fellowships enables established scholars to focus on research, away from the normal demands of their academic careers, allowing them to complete a significant piece of research through sustained period of leave for one year.
During 2024-25 Professor Parkinson will be working on his book ‘The Life of Sinuhe’: A Reader’s Commentary to the Middle Kingdom Version(s).
Professor Parkinson said: ‘This commentary on The Life of Sinuhe has been a long time coming: I became an Egyptologist so I could read the poem in the original, and I came to Oxford so I could work on this project. The main previous commentators have been Queen’s-people, so the college has always felt the right place for this project, and reading Sinuhe each year with undergraduates has shaped the whole book.
The strategies of interpretation will aim at diversity and ambiguity, and the commentary’s focus on the agency of the ancient copyists and the role of performance will hopefully help decolonize studies of Ancient Egyptian literature in general, but the main aim is simply to help readers experience this extraordinary and passionate masterpiece. It’s very exciting to pull together all the previous work with performers, conservators and students. The BA/Leverhulme Fellowships are intended for people ‘who have not been able to focus on research due to their other responsibilities’, and for me the award has been a game-changer that has persuaded me to stay in the University. ‘
The main aim is simply to help readers experience this extraordinary and passionate masterpiece.
