The Social Contexts of Medieval Arabic Science

Yale University Professor Dimitri Gutas, an authority on the medieval intellectual tradition in Islamic civilization, will give this year's Sabbagh Lecture. The lecture, 'The Social Contexts of Medieval Arabic Science," is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 26, at 7 p.m. at the Arizona Historical Society Museum.

Both the lecture and the reception afterward are free and open to the public.

Besides serving on the faculty, Dimitri Gutas also completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at Yale in classics, history of religions, and Arabic and Islamic studies. He earned a doctorate there in 1974.

Gutas is particularly concerned with understanding the many forms of classical Arabic and the transmission of Greek scientific and philosophical works into the Islamic world. Out of these two interests grew the longstanding project to compile, jointly with Gerhard Endress of Bochum University, "A Greek and Arabic Lexicon," which provides materials for a dictionary of the medieval translations from Greek into Arabic.

The Sabbagh Lecture is sponsored by the anthropology department at the University of Arizona, which has hosted the series for 12 years. These lectures focus on the Arab cultures of the Middle East from an anthropological perspective.

Through the generosity of Tucsonans Entisar and Adib Sabbagh, an expert in Arab cultures is brought to campus each year for a public lecture and a master seminar for graduate students.

Entisar (Vivi) Sabbagh is a doctoral graduate of the UA department of anthropology, and Dr. Adib Sabbagh is a Tucson cardiac surgeon. The Sabbaghs are sponsoring these lectures to enhance the public understanding and appreciation for the complexity and diversity of Arab cultures. The lectures also serve to enrich the curriculum of the department of anthropology by bringing to it the scholarship and learning of eminent anthropologists.

Dimitri Gutas
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