Why Translate Science?

Dimitri Gutas, Ph.D. (1974), Yale University, is Professor Emeritus of Arabic at Yale. He has published on the medieval Graeco-Arabic translation movement, the transmission of Greek philosophical texts into Arabic (most recently Aristotle’s Poetics, Brill, 2012), and Arabic philosophy (most recently, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition, 2nd ed., Brill, 2014).Charles Burnett, Ph.D. (1976), Cambridge University, is Professor of the History of Arabic/Islamic Influences in Europe at the Warburg Institute, University of London. His research centres on the transmission of texts from the Arab world to the West in the Middle Ages.Uwe Vagelpohl, Ph.D. (2003), Cambridge University, is a research fellow at the Warburg Institute, University of London. His research centers on the reception of antique learning in the medieval Islamic world.ContributorsMichael Angold, Pieter Beullens, Charles Burnett, David Cohen, Gad Freudenthal, Dag Nikolaus Hasse, Anthony Kaldellis, Daniel King, Felix Mundt, Ignacio Sánchez, Isabel Toral, Uwe Vagelpohl, and Mohsen Zakeri.

“The volume considers science in its broader historical sense, including medicine, astrology, and philosophy alongside mathematics and natural science, but excluding religious texts. Each contributed chapter provides an introductory essay contextualizing its sources within a specific historical period and culture. English translations of selected passages concerning the methodology of translation itself are rendered by chapter authors or from standard editions. Those same excerpts are also presented in the working translator's original language and script. Translations from and into Arabic, Greek, and Latin—and into Hebrew—receive the most attention, but Middle Persian and Syriac are also represented as target languages. Given its cost and focus, the volume will primarily be appropriate for institutions with robust history, philology, or philosophy programs, and will likely be of most use to advanced scholars in those disciplines.” P. M. Crowley, Choice Connect May 60.9 (2023).