ABSTRACT
Consider these two contrasting views of Apuleius’ cultural identity. Although Rushdie could be pedantically faulted on several points in this single sentence, it is clear that he sees Apuleius as a fellow colonial, with all the associations that may imply, and as a North African living under an empire that may be “old” but is implicitly still an empire sharing its characteristics with those of recent times. Harrison, writing of course in a stricter academic genre, emphasizes the many ways that Apuleius’ provincial African status is irrelevant to his literary and philosophical productions and to his “cultural identity.” The editors of this volume have long puzzled over the intricate web of issues surrounding this question of whether, and in what ways, Apuleius’ status as an African provincial informs his works. This volume (and the conference from which it sprang) was an attempt to engage a group of scholars with varying perspectives in furthering and developing approaches to the question of “Apuleius and Africa,” where we have deliberately left the two terms independent, linked only by “and,” in order to leave everything open. After all, this is a question that Apuleius himself has asked us to consider, inasmuch as his great work, the Metamorphoses, is a Latin novel written by an African author modeled on a Greek novel. It narrates the adventures of a Greek character bearing a Roman name who ends the novel clothed in Egyptian robes-after spending a year as a donkey. And while a number of critics have undertaken to unravel this knot of identities, Apuleius’ African side has received relatively little attention.
