Please join the Columbia University Libraries, the Sakıp Sabancı Center (SSC) for Turkish Studies, the Center for the Study of Muslim Societies (CSMS) and the Middle East Institute (MEI) for a student-led panel entitled: “Rereading the Sciences Across Islamic Manuscript Cultures”, to take place on Wednesday, March 1, 2023 at 12pm ET via Zoom.
Register here: https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Om_4yd-uRj2BA59vHuS5Jw
The talks are entitled: “Scientific Observation Among Islamic Astronomers” by Aneka Kazlyna (graduate student, MESAAS) and “Mathematical Philology: The Many Lives of the Uṣūl al-handasah” by Julia Tomasson (History department, PHD candidate). The panel will be introduced and moderated by Prof. Tunç Şen (History Department).
Moving beyond narratives of conventional “Golden Age” narratives, this panel reexamines the scientific works of scholars in the Islamicate world through the lens of manuscript culture. Utilizing the recently digitized treasures of the Columbia University Libraries’ Manuscripts of the Muslim World (MWM) project, the panel presents in-depth case studies in the history of knowledge across the premodern Islamicate world. By foregrounding the manuscript cultures that shaped the production and exchange of astronomical and mathematical knowledge, this panel raises important questions about the role of manuscript cultures in shaping scientific inquiry and the circulation of knowledge across traditions. How might we read these scientific texts in new ways that take into account the different intellectual traditions that shaped them and their legacies on their own terms?
Aneka Kazlyna and Julia Tomasson are part of the curatorial team for the accompanying exhibit “Science, Nature and Beauty: Harmony and Cosmological Perspectives in Islamic Science” (open until March 3rd), an exhibit that showcases over 90 manuscripts, instruments and objects from the Muslim World Manuscript collection housed in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the Columbia University Libraries. The exhibit is a collective curatorial effort that has involved students, faculty members, librarians and library staff working hand-in-hand.
This event contributes to an understanding of Islamic science as a robust, diverse and lively scholarly endeavor, and as a central and non-reducible component of larger and non-linear histories, cultures and traditions of the arts and sciences.
To visit the exhibit, please be aware of the University COVID compliance requirements, and be prepared to show government-issued ID at the Library Information Office in order to enter Butler Library. The hours for the Library Information Office can be found here, and for the Rare Book and Manuscript Library here. The exhibit is accompanied by an audio guide, which can be accessed here, and an e-brochure, which can be downloaded here.
