Margaret Geoga is an Egyptologist specializing in the transmission and reception of ancient Egyptian literature. She earned her PhD in Egyptology in 2020 and a concurrent MA in Comparative Literature in 2018, both from Brown University. Her current book project focuses on The Teaching of Amenemhat, an enigmatic Middle Egyptian poem depicting the murder of a pharaoh. The monograph investigates how this unusual and highly popular text was passed down, edited, and reinterpreted over the course of approximately 1000 years by its many ancient readers in both Egypt and Nubia. Maggie’s interest in reception studies also extends beyond antiquity. An ongoing project centers on Jean Terrasson’s 1731 novel Séthos, whose depiction of Egypt strongly influenced numerous eighteenth-century authors, artists, and thinkers—from Warburton to Cagliostro to Mozart—and still underlies many contemporary beliefs about ancient Egypt.
PhD, Brown University, 2020