Papers by Brandon Hensley
Walking the Worlds, 2019
The mortuary bias of Ancient Egyptian literature and artifacts typically obscures the presence of... more The mortuary bias of Ancient Egyptian literature and artifacts typically obscures the presence of alternative streams of eschatological thought in the Ancient Egyptian mind. The Osirian cycle, illustrated on countless tomb walls and across the many versions of the Books of the Dead, dominates the popular imagination in its treatment of the Egyptian afterlife. Referred to by Herodotus as a religious society par excellence, it becomes difficult to imagine space in the metaphysical ecology of Ancient Egypt for any eschatological notion aside from the final judgment and the Field of Reeds. However, this monopoly of thought is not nearly as strong as the mortuary bias would suggest. A variety of popular song, referred to by Egyptologist Miriam Lichtheim as 'Harpers Songs', shed light on a vision of the afterlife suggesting strong Epicurean themes and skepticism about the promise of eternity. A similar text from the Chester Beatty Papyrus takes this theme to its logical end, stopping only short of flatly denying post mortem phenomenal existence. When read through the lens of Matt Rosen's Speculative Annihilationism, such themes become starkly prescient in the Anthropocene and the Sixth Mass Extinction. To what end should we live our lives, and to what extent should we put our faith in life after death? This essay does not attempt the monumental task of answering these questions; however, it is the author's hope that by illustrating the elegance with which Ancient Egypt approached the question of the eschaton-what the contemporary imagination falsely postulates to be a monolithic vision-we might think our own end of days on the terms of what such self-and species-extinction implies.
Walking the Worlds, 2019
Ma'at is a goddess, ethical principle, and social more. She is without explicit definition in any... more Ma'at is a goddess, ethical principle, and social more. She is without explicit definition in any of these regards, yet She is everywhere. As a goddess, She is an object that can be described. As a principle, She is an epistemological framework for understanding individual and communal virtue. Utilizing Graham Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology and Denise Martin's epistemology of maat, this paper attempts to discern what definitive qualities of Ma'at can be ascertained in an attempt to answer the question of 'What is Ma'at?' Comparing The Speech of the Eloquent Peasant, a Middle Kingdom story, to the wider wisdom literature of Ancient Egypt, the object of Ma'at becomes clear in Her agency as a goddess, principle, and virtue. The connection between individual purity and communal consequence suggests a deeper, more robust meaning to religious orthopraxis.
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Papers by Brandon Hensley