The Conquest of Knowledge: Translation and Civilization from Antiquity to the Renaissance

Panizzi Lectures 2026, delivered by Professor Dimitri Gutas.

A survey of the history and impact of the transmission of ancient Greek thinking across the western world, through manuscript books and translation.

Lecture 1: The historical significance of the translation of Greek texts in the West from antiquity to the RenaissanceMonday 16 NovemberThe historical and political significance of the translation of Greek texts, and the development of a Hellenic curriculum of higher learning.

Lecture 2: The conquest of knowledge, through translation, in the multilingual communities in the WestThursday 19 NovemberThe conquest of knowledge: during the period from Alexander the Great to the Renaissance, western cultures acquired a Hellenic scientific and philosophical curriculum. Texts were translated from Greek into Latin, Syriac, Middle Persian, and Arabic, and from Arabic into Latin, Hebrew, and Greek. Translation was encouraged by intellectual and political elites to serve their particular aims.

Lecture 3: The impact of one canonical book: Aristotle's PoeticsFriday 20 NovemberA case study illustrating the themes of the previous lectures, looking at multilingual transformations of one canonical book, Aristotle's Poetics.

The final lecture will be followed by a reception for in-person attendees.

Dimitri Gutas serves as Professor Emeritus of Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University.

In his distinguished career his main research interests have been classical Arabic and the intellectual tradition of the Middle Ages in Islamic culture. He is a leading expert on the Graeco-Arabica translation movement (the reception, translation and tradition of Greek works on medicine, science and philosophy in the Arab-Islamic world).

Prof. Gutas’ seminal texts include Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition (2014) and Greek thought, Arabic culture (1998). Along with Professor Gerhard Endress of Ruhr University Bochum he created A Greek and Arabic lexicon: materials for a dictionary of the mediaeval translations from Greek into Arabic (Leiden, 1992 and ff; Second, Revised edition, 2020- ).

In Prof. Gutas’ career he has mentored and encouraged generations of students and colleagues, with the festschrift Islamic philosophy, science, culture, and religion: Studies in honor of Dimitri Gutas being published in 2012.