Objectives: The immediate objective is a multilingual critical edition and study of Aristotles’ Poetics and its commentaries. Since its original composition in Greek, this text was translated and commented upon from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance in multiple languages, namely Syriac-Aramaic, Arabic, Latin and Hebrew. While these versions are historically and textually interconnected, each had its own life, cultural impact, and reception. The dynamic of the Poetics’ transmission in the various linguistic contexts exhibits their differences, but also shared values, commitments, and scholarly concerns that unite these societies historically.
The ultimate scholarly objective is to create a paradigm for historical investigation of the development and transmission of science in the West (of India) from antiquity to the Renaissance, in a holistic manner, looking at the entire tradition from multiple perspectives, and assembling the expertise of scholars of diverse areas of culture. No scholar looking at one single linguistic or religious tradition can appreciate the intercultural trajectory of a work like the Poetics in its entirety. The model of collaborative multilingual research proposed here should lead not only to more critical text editions but also to a more comprehensive historiography across cultural horizons.
With the ongoing study group, our goal to establish Graeco-Arabic studies, broadly conceived as in this project— namely, the holistic and interconnected study of the philosophical and scientific heritage of the West (of India) from antiquity to the Renaissance—as an independent humanistic discipline can be said to have accomplished a first step.
The goal to establish a corresponding university program, and to found a permanent center of Graeco-Arabic studies in Berlin which would plan future collective research, coordinate the activities of Berlin scholars working on various aspects of the field, and interact in productive ways with international scholars in the field remains to be achieved in the future. The time is auspicious, since in recent years, Arabic Studies has had a growing impact and visibility within the Humanities, and we are convinced that this interactive approach and joined research with the fields of Classics and Philosophy will be fruitfully integrated. Already now, a new ERC research grant on the phenomenon of the polymath in the Islamic Middle Period, won by a scholar in Arabic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, starting in October 2023, will pursue research along these very lines of academic thinking.
The multilingual Poetics book presentation event will bring many of the involved scholars to Berlin, and we will make best use of that occasion to promote our vision further.