Class Policies

Class as Intellectual Community

Participation

Attendance

Readings

Final Project

Methodology

How to Read a Primary Source?

The Author

Author-Audience Relation

Audience Expectations

Interpreting Silence

Language

Views and Conceptions

Two Scientific Revolutions

Early Centers of Scholarship

Mapping the FieldRecapping the Story

What is a center of

scholarship?

Places for learning

Resources and institutions

Intellectual communities

About Centers of Scholarship

Attraction

Intellectual Traditions

Relation to power and authority

Relation to other centers

Byzantine Centers

Alexandria

Ancient Alexandria

Christianity

Neoplatonism

Ammonius Hermias and John the Grammarian

Umayyad Alexandria

Islamic Conquest

Role and Importance

Byzantine Centers

Antioch

Byzantine Antioch

The School of Antioch

Relation to Constantinople

Umayyad Antioch

Islamic Conquest

Life in a Frontier Fort

Umayyad Centers

Damascus

The Role of the Capital

Court and Administration

The New Mosque

Early Translations

Umayyad Centers

Basra and Kufa

Basra and Kufa

N.B. The Case of Iraq

Relation to the Capital

Outposts of Arabic Culture

The Politics of Translation

Mecca and Medina

Special Status

Relation to the Capital

Role in the new Caliphate

Jerusalem

Building Umayyad Jerusalem

Role in the new Caliphate

Success and Failure

Special Note

Gundeshapur

The Nestorian Shism

Hellenestic Culture

The School and the Hospital

Sassanid Centers

Gundeshapur

Nestorians in Islam

Nestorians, Persians and Greek

Role in Translation