Events

Workshop: Greek Thought, Arabic Culture

Friday, February 21, 2020
9:45 am – 6:30 pm

807 Schermerhorn Hall,
Columbia University
1190 Amsterdam Ave.,
New York, NY, 10027

Columbia University’s Center for the Ancient Mediterranean Workshop

“Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: New Investigations

 

RSVP requested: https://forms.gle/E6RHZJJXSQwQtEfV6.

Friday February 21, 2020 9:45am-6:30pm

807 Schermerhorn Hall

Columbia University

 

“From about the middle of the eighth century to the end of the tenth, almost all non-literary and non-historical secular Greek books that were available throughout the Eastern Byzantine Empire and the Near East were translated into Arabic.” With this sentence Dimitri Gutas started his 1998 book Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. Some twenty years later, Columbia’s Center for the Ancient Mediterranean is hosting a one-day workshop that aims to remind scholars and students of this fact and inform them on the great progress that has recently been made in the field of Graeco-Arabica. The speakers include scholars who as Arabists continue to explore how medieval Arabic writers preserved and built on the works of ancient Greek philosophers and scientists, as well as scholars of the European tradition’s use of the Arabic sources. The lectures are intended for audiences with interests in the Greek classical tradition as well as students of the Medieval Islamic world and do not require knowledge of the Arabic language. We hope to foster the interactions between all of us who study and admire the classical Greek intellectual tradition and its aftermath.

 

Program

9:45-10:00am Marc Van De Mieroop (Columbia University, Director of the Center for the Ancient Mediterranean): Introduction

 

Chair: Marc Van De Mieroop

10:00-11:00am Kevin Van Bladel (Yale University): “Before and after Dimitri Gutas’ Greek Thought, Arabic Culture.”

11:00-11:30am coffee break

11:30am-12:30pm Elaine van Dalen (Columbia University): “After Greek thought: defining Islamic Medicine.”

12:30-2:00pm: lunch break

Chair: Katja Vogt

2:00-3:00pm: Mohammad Sadegh Ansari (Columbia University): “Contextualizing Graeco-Arabic Philosophy in the Pre-Modern Islamic Worldview: Miskawayh (d. 1030 ce) on Spiritual Perfection and Apprehension of Beauty.”

3:00-4:00pm Andrew W. Arlig (CUNY) “The Architecture of a Human Being and Her Soul: A Brief Study of the Greco-Arabic Influence on Medieval Latin Metaphysics.”

4:00-4:30pm coffee break

 

Chair: Marc Van De Mieroop

4:30-5:30 pm Dimitri Gutas (Yale University) “Graeco-Arabic studies beyond Greek and Arabic: Integrating the Western humanities canon.”

5:30 – 6:30 pm: Closing words and reception

Center for the Ancient Mediterranean
Columbia University
Department of Art History and Archaeology
  1200 Amsterdam Avenue
653-A Ext. Schermerhorn Hall, MC 5517
New York, NY 10027
 212-854-0200

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