Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg Fall School 2017 (Webinar)

Call for Applications

Date: September 25-29, 2017

Application Deadline: August 15, 2017

Each fall the Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg offers, at no cost, an intensive, five-day course to Mamluk scholars (and those in related fields) at the doctoral and post-doctoral level on topics of mutual interest. The traditional model for such courses has been group work on medieval Arabic texts. The past two years, however, the Kolleg has innovated with course delivery and themes, to cultivate interdisciplinarity and expand and enrich our methodological approaches.

The theme of the Fall School 2017 is “Science and Technology in the Islamic Middle Periods”. The Islamic Middle Periods (roughly 12^th-16^th centuries) witnessed a shift to mass production and the development of new technologies and crafts. To evaluate the contributions of this period in the development of science and technology in general is one goal of this course.

This Fall School will be taught as a webinar, which allows students (and instructors) to log in from anywhere in the world and meet one another in a virtual classroom in real time.  The webinar format was chosen as an appropriate venue for technological experimentation and to create an environment fostering scientific exchange.

The course runs September 25-29, 2017. There will be generally two, two-hour seminars each day, each taught by a different instructor (or pair of instructors), who are leading scholars in their field. The seminars combine PowerPoint lectures, group discussion of secondary readings, group work with period manuscripts (on science), and hands-on (online) exercises to develop knowledge about a range of technologies and sciences developed during the Middle Islamic Period. Daily seminars will cover the following topics:

• engineering and technology of warfare
• industry, production, and transfer of trade knowledge
• pharmacology and medicine
• water technology and agrarian science
• astronomy and mapping

The language of instruction is English. Applicants will be scholars of medieval Islamic history (or related fields) at the doctoral or post-doctoral level. All participants need dependable internet access and a Skype account, and agree to be available the entire week during the times scheduled for the daily seminars.

To apply and more information, send a statement of interest and CV to Dr. Abdelkader Al Ghouz (aalghouz@uni-bonn.de) by August 15, 2017.

Source: Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg