Jan Assmann

Prof. Jan Assmann (2007)

Jan Assmann (originally Johann Christoph Assmann; born July 7, 1938) is a German Egyptologist.

Life and Works

Assmann studied Egyptology and classical archaeology in Munich, Heidelberg, Paris, and Göttingen. In 1966-67, he was a fellow of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, where he continued as an independent scholar from 1967 to 1971. After completing his habilitation in 1971, he was named a professor of Egyptology at the University of Heidelberg in 1976, where he taught until his retirement in 2003. He was then named an Honorary Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Constance, where he is today.[1][2]

In the 1990s, Assmann and his wife Aleida Assmann developed a theory of cultural and communicative memory that has received much international attention. He is also known beyond Egyptology circles for his interpretation of the origins of monotheism, which he considers as a break from earlier cosmotheism, first with Atenism and later with the Exodus from Egypt of the Israelites.[3]

Writings on Egyptian and other religions

Assmann suggests that the ancient Egyptian religion had a more significant influence on Judaism than is generally acknowledged.[4] He used the term "normative inversion" to suggest that some aspects of Judaism were formulated in direct reaction to Egyptian practices and theology. He ascribed the principle of normative inversion to a principle established by Manetho which was used by Maimonides in his references to the Sabians. His book The Price of Monotheism received some criticism for his notion of The Mosaic Distinction.[5]

Awards

Publications

German: Ma`at: Gerechtigkeit und Unsterblichkeit im alten Ägypten. Munich 1990 (Arabic Translation 1996).
trans.: Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination. Cambridge University Press, 2011. ISBN 0-521-18802-4, ISBN 978-0-521-18802-9
Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997; 1998) ISBN 0-674-58739-1
Religion and Cultural Memory: Ten Studies (Cultural Memory in the Present) trans. Rodney Livingstone, SUP (2005) ISBN 0-8047-4523-4
Death And Salvation In Ancient Egypt, trans. David Lorton (2006) ISBN 0-8014-4241-9
trans. Robert Savage: The Mosaic Distinction or The Price of Monotheism (SUP, 2009) ISBN 0-8047-6160-4
Books in English

References

  1. ↑ "Unbenanntes Dokument". Retrieved 21 September 2014.
  2. ↑ "Kurzvita Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jan Assmann". Retrieved 21 September 2014.
  3. ↑ Assmann, Jan. "Monotheism as Anti-Cosmotheism". The Price of Monotheism.
  4. ↑ Jan Assmann, Moses The Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt In Western Monotheism (Harvard University Press, 1997). ISBN 978-0674020306
  5. ↑ The God Question: Jan Assmann's 'The Mosaic Distinction' and the Return of the Repressed in the "Post-Secular" Age Hollweck, Thomas. "The God Question: Jan Assmann's 'The Mosaic Distinction' and the Return of the Repressed" (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, Sep 2, 2004)
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