Hybride lecture by Elvira Wakelnig | University of Vienna

Abstract

By studying Arabic medical manuscripts, we learn a lot about medical theory, the practicalities of teaching, the interrelation between medicine and philosophy, the materiality of texts, the circulation of individual treatises, and the importance of para-texts. I will present and discuss a number of Arabic manuscripts to address the following questions: who copied medical manuscripts, for which purpose and in which intellectual setting? Who read, collated and annotated them? Who owned them? Did voluminous medical texts such as the Arabic translations of Galen’s On the Usefulness of the Parts or On the Therapeutic Method circulate in one or more volumes? Whatdo manuscripts tell us about the relation between the Arabic versions of Galenic originals and Arabic commentaries on them? What information do glosses in the margin provide about intellectual debates at a given time? How does the layout of a manuscript affect our perception and understanding of the text? And how do para-texts reflect the development of medical doctrine?

POSTER (PDF)

Attendance in person at:

Campus of the University of Vienna
Department of Near Eastern Studies' Auditorium

Or online:

ZOOM

This is the fourth lecture in the webinar series for the academic year 2025-26, this year organised by the NoMansLand research project (FWF Y 1232) dedicated to the study of Islamic manuscripts in pre-modern Iran and Central Asia in collaboration with the Institut für Orientalistik (Universität Wien) as part of the Lecture series "Beyond the Codex: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Manuscript Cultures."

Visit our YouTube channel to watch recordings of past lectures:

https://www.youtube.com/@IFI_Media

For a list of upcoming lectures in the webinar series, please see Webinar series "Pre-modern Islamic manuscripts"