Tony Harrison's The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus as post-colonial criticism

Abstract

Tony Harrison's play The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus has been considered in the secondary literature from the point of view of dramatic impact, classicism and social criticism. In this paper, I propose that a major, but overlooked, theme of the play is that of colonial exploitation in the practices that shaped the study of the classical past, and suggest that it can be used as a valuable guide to decolonizing papyrology.