Seminario GEAR-DEFIHIS: "Are there alternatives to the decline-progress paradigm for the history of science in Islamic societies?"

Jue, 16-06-2011; 02:00
Sede CCHS
12:00 hrs. Sala Sánchez Albornoz 2E
 
Por Sonja Brentjes (Univ. de Sevilla)
 
The notion of scholarly decline in the Ottoman Empire appeared first in writings of Italian envoys to the Sublime Porte and their doctors in the last years of the sixteenth century. It resulted from a complex mix of factors: historical theory, political confrontation, applications for positions, concepts of cultural superiority, lack of competence. The idea spread quickly across Catholic and Protestant Europe without, however, eliminating the older concept of scholarly vivacity in Arabic societies. Rather, the Ottomans were increasingly portrayed as the destructors of the knowledge of their religious predecessors. In the nineteenth century, Ernest Renan sharpened the conflict to a confrontation between social progress as result of scientific progress in Europe and scientific decline as result of religious superstition and social barbarism in the Islamic world. While some of the edges of this interpretation of the history of scientific activities in Islamic societies have been chipped away during the second half of the twentieth century, the paradigm of progress in the classical period (8th-12th centuries) and decline in the postclassical period (13th-17th centuries) continues to dominate the historiographical practice until today. I will discuss my work-in-progress presenting alternative possibilities for studying the sciences and their relevance in late medieval and early modern Islamic societies.
 
Organiza: Maribel Fierro y Mercedes Melchor (ILC, CCHS-CSIC)
 
Organiza: Grupo Estudios Árabes (GEAR - DEFIHIS) - ILC
Cartel4.21 MB