IAS Book Launch: Mastering Nature in the Medieval Arabic and Latin Worlds

Charles Burnett’s studies exemplify cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary research that views the Arabic and Latin worlds as part of a vast cultural area spreading across West Asia, North Africa and Europe, and bridged by inquisitive scholars and learned translators.

Mastering Nature (Ann Giletti, Dag Nikolaus Hasse (eds), Brepols 2023) collects studies on medieval Arabic science and European engagement with it. They introduce a range of learning: astrology conducted with planetary lots; a geography where features of the earth's surface move over time; knowledge of the elements and climates which Adelard of Bath learned from Arab masters; Avicenna’s meteorology explaining extremes of fire storms and catastrophic floods; debates about the eternity or creation of the world; evaluations of magic as a rational discipline, or alternatively a danger needing censorship and linked to female witchcraft; and a precious astrolabe which in the Renaissance was reused and inspired new theoretical writings.

The book launch will begin with an introduction by the editors, Ann Giletti and Dag Nikolaus Hasse, followed by short presentations by the eight authors: 

Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum (Duxbury, MA, USA and London, UK) is a historian of astrology in Greco-Roman and later Antiquity and the Middle Ages and its transmission from Hellenistic to Arab thinkers.
Godefroid de Callataÿ (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) is a historian of medieval Arabic science and philosophy and their role in transmitting knowledge from Greek Antiquity to the Latin West.
Pedro Mantas-España (Córdoba, Spain) is a historian of medieval philosophy and the transmission of scientific and philosophical knowledge between Arab and Latin thinkers.
David Porreca (Waterloo, Canada) is a medieval intellectual historian specialising in Christian reception of the pagan Classical tradition, particularly magic and the Hermetic tradition.
Sophie Page (London, UK) is a historian of medieval social, cultural and intellectual history, with a focus on the history of magic, science and religion, cosmology and approaches to nature.
Koenraad Van Cleempoel (Hasselt, Belgium) is a specialist in medieval scientific instruments including astrolabes, as well as conceptual perspectives on architecture and design.