Godefroid De Callatay

1) Edition
of the Rasā’il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’

Edition of Epistles 7 (“The
scientific arts”), 28 (“The limits of human knowledge”), 36 (“Cycles and revolutions”), 52a (“On Magic I”, with Bruno Halflants) and 52b (“On Magic II”, with
Bruno Halflants and Sébastien Moureau) as part of the on-going project at
Oxford University press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies to
publish a multi-volume Arabic
critical edition of The Epistles of
the Brethren of Purity, with an annotated English
translation, introduction and critical commentary.

For the whole project, see: http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=112055.

For the edition of Epistle 52a, published
in 2011, see: http://global.oup.com/academic/product/on-magic-i-9780199638956;jsessionid=BAF847EBC7E5DD09535D2C6C3452097E?cc=be&lang=en&

2) Speculum Arabicum

Speculum Arabicum (ARC
2012-2017: “Objectifying the contribution of the Arab-Muslim world to the
history of sciences and ideas: the sources and resources of medieval
encyclopaedism”) is a five-year project on comparative medieval
encyclopaedism now under way at the University of Louvain. The project seeks to
explore medieval encyclopaedism in the East and the West in order to provide
unbiased information and quantifiable benchmarks that can help us better
understand the extent of what Europe owes to the scholars of Islam. Promoters: Godefroid
de Callataÿ (chairman), Baudouin Van den Abeele, Mattia Cavagna, Françoise Van
Haeperen.

The contribution of the Arab-Muslim world
to the field of the history of science remains a matter of debate and
controversy today. In spite of the undeniable achievements of scholarship over
the last 150 years, current research is still in need of unbiased information
and quantifiable benchmarks in order to assess, on a truly scientific basis,
the extent of what Europe owes to the scholars of medieval Islam. Because their
purpose is precisely to organise and classify human knowledge with an
all-encompassing scope, encyclopaedias are works that reflect, as do mirrors,
the cultural and intellectual concerns of the societies that have produced
them. Research on medieval encyclopaedism has generated excellent results in
various fields so far, but still suffers from a regrettable propensity for
compartmentalization, with the result that Arabists, Byzantinists, Latinists,
and Romanicists are only rarely involved in common projects.

At the core of our investigations since the
founding of our group of research in 2003, the comparative study of
encyclopaedias in the East and the West offers a wide range of concrete and
objective data that are directly usable to help us answering our initial
question. This cross-cultural approach proves to be especially helpful in what
regards the study of the sources and of the transmission of the texts.
Therefore, in view of evaluating the importance of the Arab-Muslim world as one
of the roots of Europe’s cultural and intellectual identity, we have defined
five complementary fields of inquiry that are designed either for doctoral or
post-doctoral research, namely:

1. “Arabic
   sources in black and white: a study of Arab authorities in the Latin encyclopaedias
   of the 13th C.” (PhD: Grégory Clesse; supervisors: G. de Callataÿ – B. Van
   den Abeele)





2. “Between the East and the West: the
   sources and scopes of the Byzantine Suda (10th C.)” (Post-doc :
   Bastien Kindt; supervisor: F. Van Haeperen)





3. “From the Speculum historiale to the
   Miroir historial: towards a more ‘neutral’ approach of Islam” (PhD:
   Florence Ninitte; supervisor: M. Cavagna)





4. “A comparison of the Oriental and
   Occidental traditions on the Wonders of the Word” (Post-doc: Omayra
   Herrero; supervisor: G. de Callataÿ)





5. “From Latin to the vernacular: the
   translation of Arab authors into the Romance-speaking area” (Post-doc:
   Lorenzo Mainini; supervisors: B. Van den Abeele – M. Cavagna).

In addition to the
specifically designed supervisors for each field, researchers naturally benefit
from a collegial coaching, combining the expertise of the four promoters of the
project. Synergies are facilitated by: 1) the pursuit of the annual seminar; 2)
the organization by our group of at least one international conference on the
issue at the heart of our research project.

More
info on: http://www.uclouvain.be/419390.html