Prof. Almut Renger (Head: Project C02 “Asceticism in Motion: Forms and Transfer of Habitualized Knowledge in Antiquity and Late Antiquity”) and her team are presenting an international conference on the topic of ‘Gendering Ascetic Knowledge in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam’ as part of the SFB 980 “Episteme in Motion”. L. Lehmhaus, research associate in Prof. M.J. Geller’s SFB 980 project A03 on Talmudic Medicine and BabMed affiliate, will act at the the conference as chair for the panel on Judaism.

The speakers in the conference will try to to redraw the map of asceticism in Late Antquity by focussing on the diverse processes of interreligious and intercultural transfer, dialogue and mutual exchange. Moreover, the papers seek to shed light on fairly understudied aspects of gender and body studies in relation to pre-modern ascetic practice(s) and knowledge.

Date: 22–23 October 2015

Venue: Freie Universität Berlin, Seminarzentrum, Otto-von-Simson-Str. 26,

14195 Berlin, Room L 116

The full conference programme ist published online at the SFB webpage.

Eric Schmidtchen

Physiognomy and Ekphrasis: The Mesopotamian Tradition and its Transformation in Graeco-Roman and Semitic Literatures

February 16–17, 2016, Freie Universität Berlin

BabMed Annual Workshop 3,

Conference organisers, J. Cale Johnson and Alessandro Stavru, invite proposals to be included in the conference and/or the conference volume.
Please send your abstract (250 words) to the organizers by October 30, 2015.

For further details, please see the BabMed website under ‘conferences’.

Contact: Agnes Kloocke: babylonian-medicine@geschkult.fu-berlin.de
Habelschwerdter Allee 45 (Rostlaube), Room JK 30/204, 14195 Berlin, +49 (0)30 838 58038
www.fu-berlin.de/babylonianmedicine

Agnes Kloocke

The results of CT scans conducted by the Archaeological Superintendency of Pompeii of the plaster casts of Pompeiians who perished in the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius give interesting insights into both the dental health and the diet of these ancient people.

Read the full article here.

Marius Hoppe

Prof. Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum (Head: Project A01), Prof. Jochem Kahl (Head: Project A02), Prof. Jörg Klinger (Head: Project A01), and Prof. Eung-Jeung Lee (Head: SFB Associate Project) are presenting the workshop on ‘Scholarship between clay and light. Libraries, archives and documents in the Eastern world’ of the SFB 980. J. Cale Johnson, BabMed Deputy head, will also be giving a talk at the workshop.
As partially suggested in the title, the speakers will examine the role, function and structure especially of eastern forms of institutional libraries. The main aim of the given talks will be the analysis of these institutions as a place of traditional preservation as well as transmission and change of knowledge.

The full conference programme ist published online at the SFB webpage.

Date: 05–07 November 2015
Venue: Freie Universität Berlin, Fabeckstr. 23–25 (Holzlaube), 14195 Berlin, 2. OG, Room
2.2051

Eric Schmidtchen

October 1st-3rd, 2015, St. Norbert College, De Pere, WI

Since it has become increasingly common that the philosophical and medical traditions of the Ancient World developed together, it is getting clear that both must be studied in conjunction as well. Disciplinary boundaries and the vast body of relevant material often tend to reinforce the separation between the two fields of scholarship as well as the isolation of humanities from medical sciences within the American academic life in general.

Coinciding with the opening of the Medical College of Wisconsin’s site at St. Norbert College the conference Medicine and philosophy in Antiquity ought to emphasize the importance of an understanding of the complex historical connections between medical learning and humanistic study.

Conference program:

Thursday, October 1, 2015
Key note lecture
Heinrich von Staden, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, “What is Health? Ancient and Modern Perspectives.”
Friday, October 2, 2015, Cassandra Voss Center

Joe Bullock, The University of Texas at Austin, “Precision and Error in On Ancient Medicine”

Anna Cremaldi, Appalachian State University, “Inexact Medicine in Regimen”

Carrie Swanson, University of Iowa, “Sextus Makes a House Call: Medical Sophisms in the Outlines of Pyrrhonism”

David Kaufman, Transylvania University, “Non-rational Feelings and Desires in Galen’s Psychology”

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Jurgen Gatt, University College, London, “The Role of Autopsy in the Criticism of Explanations in On the Sacred Disease”

Marco Romani Mistretta, Harvard University, “Medicine and Divination from Prometheus to Timaeus”

Emily Fletcher, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Disease and Human Nature in the Timaeus”

R.J. Hankinson, The University of Texas at Austin, “What is a Humoral Theory?”

Eric Schmidtchen

BabMed Working Session in Jerusalem: On September 20, 2015, Israel prize winner Shamma Friedman and head of the BabMed partner project at Bar-Ilan University invites the public to discuss the links in medical knowledge between the Babylonian eras of Ancient Mesopotamia and the Bavli.

Deputy head of project, Aaron Amit, will give insights to the textual research achieved during the project’s course, contributions by Gideon Bohak from Tel Aviv University as well as Markham J. Geller and Tanja Hidde from Freie Universität Berlin shall discuss further aspects of linkage between the two cultures.

Medical Knowledge from Ancient Babylonia to Talmudic Babylonia
Sunday, September 20, 2015, at 2.30 pm
The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem

Gideon Bohak, Tel Aviv University: Aramaic Manuals of Divination from Late Antiquity.

Tanja Hidde, Freie Universität Berlin: Bulmos/Boulímos in the Talmudic Tradition.

Markham J. Geller, Freie Universität Berlin: Goodbye Julius Preuss: Unexpected Instances of Medicine in the Bavli.

Aaron Amit, Bar-Ilan University: סוסכינתא – An Obscure Disease and a Dubious Cure in Bavli Yebamot 64b.

Agnes Kloocke

Rune Nyord, Cambridge University, is presenting his lecture on

Hidden within an ancient bronze water jug exhibited at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki in Greece are the cremated remains of three elite individuals.  Anthropologists examining the fragments have come to a startling conclusion about cause of death: the pregnant woman may have died when a parasitic cyst ruptured, killing her and her baby.

Read the full article here.

Marius Hoppe

In The Class Reunion—An Annotated Translation and Commentary on the Sumerian Dialogue Two Scribes, J. Cale Johnson and Markham J. Geller present a critical edition, translation and commentary on the Sumerian scholastic dialogue otherwise known as Two Scribes, Streit zweier Schulabsolventen or Dialogue 1. The two protagonists, the Professor and the Bureaucrat, each ridicule their opponent in alternating speeches, while at the same time scoring points based on their detailed knowledge of Sumerian lexical and literary traditions. But they also represent the two social roles into which nearly all graduates of the Old Babylonian Tablet House typically gained entrance. So the dialogue also reflects on larger themes such as professional identity and the nature of scholastic activity in Mesopotamia in the Old Babylonian period (ca. 1800–1600 BCE).

Table of contents:
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. Synthetic Text and Translation
3. Textual Criticism and Methodology
4. Manuscripts, Edition and Commentary
5. Bibliography
Thematic Index
Index of Sumerian and Akkadian terms
Plates

The Class Reunion—An Annotated Translation and Commentary on the Sumerian Dialogue Two Scribes
J. Cale Johnson and Markham J. Geller

ISBN13: 9789004302099

Publication Date: July 2015
Format: Hardback
Pages, Illustr.: xiv, 362 pp.
Price: €135/$175

Brill, Leiden/Boston

This year’s summer conference at the Institute of Jewish Studies, University College London is to be held on 1-2 September 2015. The conference is co-sponsored by the Centre for International Cooperation, Freie Universitaet, and the Zentrum fuer Juedische Studien, Berlin. The conference ‘Depicting Jewish Thought’ convened by L. Muehlethaler will be held in honour of Prof. Ada Rapoport-Albert.

For further information and conference programme please go to UCL or ZJS homepages.

Agnes Kloocke