Jake Colloff

JJake Colloff is a PhD Candidate in Egyptology at Harvard. His thesis is preliminarily titled “Subversion, Contradiction and Paradoxes in Middle Kingdom Egyptian Literature”. Jake received his BA in Ancient History and Philosophy from the University of Auckland, followed by a BA (Honours) in Ancient History with a concentration in Egyptology. His Honours thesis was entitled “Time in 19th Dynasty Egyptian Thought.” He then moved to the Netherlands where he acquired a Masters in Egyptology from Leiden University following his Masters thesis “Fantastic Beasts and how to Interpret Them: A Study of Griffins in the Elite Tombs of the Middle Kingdom”.

Jake’s primary fields of interest are literature, Egyptian thought/philosophy, understanding emic views of Egyptian culture, applied theory, art history, and equity critiques of the discipline. Jake has published in and reviewed for various academic journals and spoken at a number of conferences. As of Fall 2023 he has taken up the teaching of the course “Voices from the Nile: Ancient Egyptian Literature in Translation” - a recurring Fall class. He has also worked in helping run a number of workshops at Harvard including ‘Theory Corner’, an academic book / journal club which explores interdisciplinary ideas from the humanities and social sciences, and Methodologies in Egyptology and Mesopotamian Studies (MEMS) an outlet for PhD Students and invited speakers to share progress on thesis research and prepare for professional conferences.