ARCE-PA's Korsyn Annual Lecture Speakers:
ARCE-PA is proud to host the
Annual Korsyn Lecture. This annual lecture event is in honor of Felix J.
Korsyn, a beloved volunteer of the Penn Museum's Egyptian Section. Our first
Korsyn Lecture was in May 2006, and has been held regularly since 2008.
May 2006
Dr. David O'Connor
(Institute of Fine Arts, NYU)
March 2008
Dr. Ellen Morris (Columbia
University; currently Barnard College)
March 2009
Dr. Edward Bleiberg
(Brooklyn Museum of Art)
March 2010
Dr. Eugene Uribe-Cruz
(University of Arizona; currently Indiana University East)
March 2011
Dr. Suzanne Onstine
(University of Memphis)
March 2012
Dr. Nadine Moeller
(University of Chicago)
March 2013
Dr. Peter der
Manuelian (Harvard University)
March 2014
Dr.
John Baines (Oxford University)
March 2015
Dr.
Ronald J. Leprohon (University of Toronto)
March 2016
Mr. Andrew Oliver (Author)
March 2017
Dr. James Allen (Brown
University)
March 2018
Dr. Melinda Hartwig (Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University)
March 2019
Dr. Betsy Bryan (Johns Hopkins University)
March 2020 CANCELLED due to COVID 19
Dr. Kara Cooney (UCLA)
March 2019
Dr. Betsy Bryan (Johns Hopkins University)
March 2021
Dr. Denise Doxey (Boston Museum of Fine Arts)
March 2022
Dr. Kathryn Howley (NYU)
March 2023
March 2023
Dr. Rune Nyord (Emory University)
March 2024
Dr. Peter Der Manuelian (Harvard University)
FELIX
KORSYN
by
JJ Shirley, PhD
The
Felix J. Korsyn Fund was established in 1993. It is dedicated to promoting
scholarship in ancient Egypt through a Prize in Egyptology, awarded to a
graduate student in Egyptology at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as
through the annual Korsyn Lecture, hosted by the American Research Center in
Egypt-Pennsylvania Chapter. The Fund was established by Felix’s wife, Irene
Korsyn, to honor both his memory and his devotion to the University Museum and
its Egyptian Section, where he worked as a volunteer for nearly 20 years.
Felix
Korsyn’s interest in “old things” was a life-long one. Although professionally he was an
advertising executive, he was an avid traveler to parts of the world as
disparate as Nepal, Kenya, Greece, and of course Egypt. His general interest in
history led him to become an expert in early American antiques, particularly
pre-Revolutionary furniture and architecture. Felix amassed quite a collection
of furniture, which, as his son Kevin recalls, was used to furnish one of the
family's early homes. It also gave Felix a very detailed knowledge of different
types of wood, which types were used during which period, and for what purpose,
and the ability to distinguish whether furniture or architectural pieces had
been tampered with in any way. His
expertise in this area was utilized by St. Michael’s Lutheran Church, for whom
he contributed time and expertise in the restoration of their pre-Revolutionary
schoolhouse.
In
1975 Felix Korsyn retired from his “day job” and begin volunteering at the
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. Ancient
Egypt held the most fascination for him, and he joined a group of volunteers,
many of whom worked nearly full-time, under the direction of the “Keeper of the
Collection,” Charles Detwiler. Called the Ushabtis,
after the servant statues placed in the tombs of ancient Egyptians to assist
them in the afterlife, the volunteers held a variety of skills, all of which
were brought to bear for the benefit of the Museum’s vast collection of ancient
Egyptian artifacts. Felix
contributed his architectural knowledge to building new shelving for the
artifacts, and as a side project of his own created a reproduction of a coffin
lid.
His
skills as a photographer, gained through his world-wide travels, made him the
ideal person to begin the photographic record of the Egyptian objects held by
the Museum. Over a period of about
5 years (1988-1993), Felix photographed a wide variety of the Egyptian
section’s objects, resulting in some 80 rolls of film and nearly 3000
images. During this time his
specialty became the photography of inscribed objects, including nearly all of
the inscribed material from the University’s excavations at Denderah and
Abydos, as well as a number of coffin boards. The difficulty of producing high-quality photographs of this
material was a challenge that Felix gladly took on. According to his son, Kevin, Felix invented many kinds of
specialized equipment as the need arose, including special lighting to produce
readable photographs of hieroglyphic inscriptions. The resulting high level of quality and detail is
demonstrated by the fact that his work continues to serve as a reference tool
for scholars within and outside of the museum.
In
an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer (Oct. 1987) on the importance of the
Museum’s Egyptian section volunteers, Felix is quoted as saying “Handling these
objects is a privilege. We’re not spinning our wheels here, we’re making an
important contribution.” This is
especially so for Felix’s work at the museum, and continues to be true today
through the Korsyn Fund, which has enabled ARCE-PA to host prominent scholars
for our members and guests.
~*~*~*~*~*~
*I would like
to thank Kevin Korsyn for providing me with family anecdotes and history, and
Jean Walker, an Assistant Keeper in the Egyptian Section, for providing material and
photographs relating to Felix’s time at the museum.
