Greek philosophy’s journey to early modern Europe is one of the most important stories in the history of thought. But it’s also one of the hardest to tell—it leads from the vast corpora of late antique commentary, through the theological schools of Edessa and Nisibis in Syria, through the ‘Abbāsid translation movement in Baghdad, the Jewish communities of Muslim Spain and medieval Provence, the Byzantine Empire and the universities of the Latin West, to the European hubs of the scientific revolution: Florence, Paris, London, Amsterdam. Putting aside the difficulty of the material itself, to answer these questions one needs more than a dozen languages, not to mention the philological and palaeographical expertise relevant to each. This is a story no one scholar can tell—it calls for collaboration between historians, philologists, and philosophers of many different periods and areas. To foster a research community capable of telling this story, we meet bi-monthly to study the reception history of ancient science and philosophy. In Fall 2016, we focus on Plato’s Timaeus, one of the most crucial texts in the history of science: tracking its reception from late antiquity, through the Islamicate world, to the Renaissance and beyond.

We welcome the participation of philosophers, classicists, historians, Syriacists, Arabists, Hebraists, medievalists, early modernists, and anyone interested in the history of thought in general—students and faculty. Meetings alternate between discussions of precirculated readings and presentations by invited speakers on a topic of their expertise. Speakers for the 2016-2017 AY include Aileen Das (Michigan), Daniel Pedersen (PTS), Anna Marmodoro (Oxford), and Fabio Pagani (Catholic University of America). For details, please email Tom Davies.

FALL SEMESTER EVENTS

October 7th
1:00 PM-2:30 PM
Scheide Caldwell 209
Speaker: Aileen Das (Michigan)

November 4th
1:00 PM-2:30 PM
Scheide Caldwell 209
Speaker: Daniel Pedersen (PTS)