Ancient and Medieval Sciences (Not Currently Active)

A. Şen, “Reading the Stars at the Ottoman Court,” Arabica 64 (2017): 557–608
N. Shafir, “Forging Islamic science,” Aeon

M. Ryan, Kingdom of Stargazers. Astrology and Authority in the Late Medieval
Crown of Aragon, chaps 2 & 4.
[Note, I've included the table of contents and the introduction in case you want a sense of the larger book project.]

M. Berrey, Hellenistic Science at Court. Science, Technology and Medicine in
Ancient Cultures, chaps 3 & 4.
[Note, I've included the table of contents and the introduction in case you want a sense of the larger book project.]

• E. Truitt, “The Incarnation of Time,” in L’automate: modèle, machine, merveille (2013), 365–378.
• G. Rossum, “From Prestige Object to Urban Accessory,” in History of the Hour (1996), 125–172.

• J. Davis, “A Royal English Medieval Astrolabe Made for Use in Northern Italy”
• C. Eagleton, “‘Chaucer’s Own Astrolabe’: Text, Image and Object”
• J. Bennett, “The So-Called ‘Chaucer Astrolabe’ from the Koelliker Collection, Milan”
• M. Abuzayed & D. King, “From a Heavenly Arabic Poem to an Enigmatic Judaeo-Arabic Astrolabe”

Optional:

• E. Dekker, “A Close Look at Two Astrolabes and Their Star Tables”
• E. Dekker, “Of Astrolabes and Dates and Dead Ends”

• C. Eagleton, “Medieval Sundials and Manuscript Sources: The Transmission of Information about the Navicula and the Organum Ptolomei in Fifteenth-Century Europe”
• J. Evans & M. Marée, “A Miniature Ivory Sundial with Equinox Indicator from Ptolemaic Tanis, Egypt”
• D. King, “An Instrument of Mass Calculation made by Naṭūlus in Baghdad ca. 900”

Optional (somewhat more technical) Readings:

• M. Arnaldi, “An Ancient Rule for Making Portable Altitude Sundials from an “Unedited” Medieval Text of the Tenth Century”
• M. Wright, “Greek and Roman Portable Sundials: An Ancient Essay in Approximation”

• M. Osborn, “Anglo-Saxon Ethnobotany: Women's Reproductive Medicine in Leechbook III” in Health and Healing from the Medieval Garden (2015), 145–161.
• C.M. Guardiola-Griffiths, “Homegrown: From the Woman’s Workplace to the Medieval Garden” La corónica 44 (2015): 39–65.

• L. Voigts, “Anglo-Saxon Plant Remedies and the Anglo-Saxons” Isis 70 (1979): 250–68.
• P. Rusche, “The Sources for Plant Names in Anglo-Saxon England and the Laud Herbal Glossary” Health and Healing from the Medieval Garden (2015), 128–144.

 Optional: 

• M. D’Aronco, “Gardens on Velum: Plants and Herbs in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts” Health and Healing from the Medieval Garden (2015), 101–127.

• Wiston Black, “‘I will add what the Arab once taught’: Constantine the African in Northern European Medical Verse,” in Herbs and Healers from the Ancient Mediterranean through the Medieval West (Ashgate, 2012), 153–185.
• K. Reeds and T. Kinukawa, “Medieval Natural History,” in Cambridge History of Science—Medieval Science (CUP), 569–589

• U. Engelhardt, “Dietetics in Tang China and the first extant works of materia medica,” Innovation in Chinese Medicine, E. Hsu (ed.), (CUP, 2001), 173–191.
• D. Harper, “Ancient and Medieval Chinese Recipes for Aphrodisiacs and Philters.” Asian Medicine 1.1(2005): 91–100.
• R. Sterckx, “The Limits of Illustration: Animalia and Pharmacopeia from Guo Pu to Bencao gangmu,” Asian Medicine 4(2008): 357–394.

J. Stannard, “Aspects of Byzantine Materia Medica,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers (1984): 205-211

J. Scarborough, “Herbs of the Field and Herbs of the Garden in Byzantine Medicinal Pharmacy,” Byzantine Garden Culture (2002), 177-188

A. Touwaide, “Latin Crusaders, Byzantine Herbals,” Visualizing Medieval Medicine (2006), 25-50

The group discussed three articles:

E. Savage-Smith, “Magic-Medicinal Bowls” in Science, Tools & Magic (1997), pp. 72–105

E. Lev, “Reconstruction of the Inventory of materia medica used by members of the Jewish Community of Medieval Cairo …” in Journal of Ethnopharmacology (2006): 428–444

L. Chipman, “Recipes by Hippocrates, Galen and Hunayn in the Epidemics and in Medieval Arabic Pharmacopoeias” in Epidemics in context (2012), pp. 285–301

The group read three articles on ancient pharmacology:

“Mithradates’ Antidote: A Pharmcological Ghost” by Laurence M. V. Totelin, Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2004), pp. 1-19

“Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Court of Cleopatra VII: Traces of Three Physicians” by John Scarborough, in Arsdall, Anne Van, and Graham, Timothy, eds. Medicine in the Medieval Mediterranean: Herbs and Healers from the Ancient Mediterranean through the Medieval West: Essays in Honor of John M. Riddle, Routledge, 2012.

“A recipe for a headache: Translating and interpreting ancient Greek and Roman remedies” by Laurence M.V. Totelin, in Imhausen, Annette, and Pommerening, Tanja, eds. Beiträge zur Altertumskunde : Writings of Early Scholars in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Rome, and Greece : Translating Ancient Scientific Texts, De Gruyter, 2011.

The group discussed Peter Dear's "Afterword" for the Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Science and Mary Baine Campbell's chapter on "Literature" from The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 3, Early Modern Science (2006), edited by Katharine Park and Lorraine Daston.

We read the first two chapters from David Wootton's recent book, The Invention of Science, L. Daston’s review (from the Guardian), and A. Wulff’s review (from the Financial Times).

The group discussed Kleber Cecon's "Chemical Translation: The Case of Robert Boyle’s Experiments on Sensible Qualities," Annals of Science, Vol. 68, No. 2, April 2011, pp. 179-198, as well as Pamela Smith's "In the Workshop of History: Making, Writing, and Meaning," West 86th, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring-Summer 2012), pp 4-31.

The group joined the "Science Beyond the West" group for a special event: Dimitri Gutas and H. Floris Cohen discussed Cohen’s recent book, How Modern Science Came Into the World: Four Civilizations, One 17th-Century Breakthrough (Amsterdam University Press, 2011).

Planning meeting for 2015-2016

Sue Wells of Temple University introduced her draft chapter, "'The Anatomy of Melancholy' and Early Modern Medicine."

Nahyan Fancy of Depauw University introduced his paper, "Avicenna, Ibn al-Nafis, and New Developments in Physiology in Western Eurasia, 1200-1560"