Shaping the sciences of the ancient world

Text criticism, critical editions and translations of ancient and medieval scholarly Texts

(18th-20th centuries)

Conference organized by the ERC research project

“Mathematical sciences in the ancient world” (SAW)

http://www.sphere.univ-paris-diderot.fr/spip.php?rubrique57

June 17—21, 2013

Monday, June 17

9:30-9:45 am      Karine Chemla (CNRS—SPHERE & ERC Project SAW)

Introduction

Practices of editing: Numbers & Diagrams                                               Chair: Agathe Keller

9:45-11:15 am    Michel, Cécile (CNRS ArScAn-HAROC & ERC Project SAW) & Christine Proust (CNRS—SPHERE & ERC Project SAW)

Transliterating and translating numbers and quantities in editions of cuneiform texts

Commentary by: Reviel Netz

11:15-11:45 am   Break

11:45-1:00 pm    Reviel Netz, (Stanford University)

Reduction of absurdity? Publishing the diagrams of indirect proof

Commentary by: Karine Chemla

1:00-2:15 pm      Lunch

Practices of editing: Handling evidence                                                    Chair: Cécile Michel

2:15-3:30 pm      Alessandro Graheli (Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, University of

Vienna)

The Impact of the Press in the Tradition of the Nyāyabhāṣya

Commentary by: Fabien Simon

3:30-4:00 pm      Break

4:00-5:15 pm     Zheng Cheng (Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, CAS, China) and Zhu Yiwen (ERC project SAW, SPHERE),

The First Printed Edition of Mathematical Treatise in Nine Sections (Shushu jiuzhang 數書九章) and the Text Criticism during 17^th to 19^th Century

Commentary by: Christine Proust

5:15-5:30 pm      General discussion

Tuesday, June 18

From ancient to future editions                                                               Chair: Christine Proust

9:30 am-11 am    Glenn Most (The University of Chicago and Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa)

What is a critical edition? Historical and Methodological Reflections

Commentary by: Jeff Loveland

11:00-11:30 am   Break

11:30-12:45        Piotr Michalowski (University of Michigan)

Editing the Past and in the Past: Ancient Sumerian Literary Production and its Modern Reception

Commentary by: Agathe Keller

1:00-2:15 pm      Lunch

The treatment of ancient readers and commentators in modern editions & translations

Chair: Sheldon Pollock

 2:15-3:30 pm     Agathe Keller (CNRS—SPHERE & ERC Project SAW)

What do you do with commentaries, what do you do with structure? H. T. Colebrooke, Sudhākara Dvivedin and the mathematical chapter of the Brahmasphutasiddhānta

Commentary by: Pierre Chaigneau

3:30-4:00 am      Break

4:00-5:15 pm      Michalis Sialaros (Birkbeck College, University of London)

Shaping ‘our’ Euclid: a parallel examination of the critical editions of the Elements and the Data (by J. L. Heiberg and H. Menge, respectively)

Commentary by: Ivahn Smadja

5:15-5:30           General discussion

Wednesday, June 19

A historical approach to philology —1                                                    Chair: Piotr Michalowski

9:30-11:00 am    Sheldon Pollock (Columbia University, New York)

A Theory of Philological Practice in Early Modern India

Commentary by: Cécile Michel

11:00-11:30 am   Break

11:30-12:45        Micheline Decorps-Foulquier (University of Clermont-Ferrand, SPHERE)

The critical edition of the mathematical texts of Greek Antiquity: questions of method

Commentary by: Bob Middeke-Conlin

12:45-1:00 pm    General discussion

Thursday, June 20

A historical approach to philology —2                                                    Chair:   Han Qi

10:00-11:15 am   Jerry Cooper (Department of Near Eastern Studies
Johns Hopkins University)

Editing the Sumerians: How and Why?

Commentary by: Karin Preisendanz

11:15-11:45 am   Break

11:45 am-1 pm   Mathieu Ossendrijver (Humboldt Universitaet, Berlin)

Babylonian astronomy—editing and interpreting an ancient science

Commentary by: Zhu Yiwen

1:00-2:15 pm      Lunch

The impact of modern editions on the historiography of ancient scholarship.    Chair: Karen Preisendanz

2:15-3:30 pm      Christopher Minkowski (Oriental Studies, University of Oxford)

The treatise of the Sun and Fitzedward Hall’s edition

Commentary by: Matthieu Husson

3:30-4:00 am      Break

4:00-5:15 pm      Carine Defoort (Leuven University)

Mozi’s Resurrection: Sun Yirang’s (1848-1908) Contribution to the Reappraisal of Mohist Thought in Chinese Intellectual History

Commentary by: Alessandra Petrocchi

5:15-5:30 pm      General discussion

Friday, June 20

What is at stake in editing and translating ancient texts? A Historical perspective--1.  Chair: Jerry Cooper

9:30-11:00 am    Han Qi (Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, CAS, China)

Rethinking the Ancient Mathematical Text: Ming-Qing Scholars' Critical Reflections on the Zhoubi suanjing

Commentary by: Mathieu Ossendrijver

11:00-11:30 am   Break

11:30-12:45       Karin Preisendanz (Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, University of Vienna)


Editing a Foundational Work on Classical Indian Medicine: The Printed Editions of the Carakasamhitā in Context

Commentary by: Stéphane Schmitt

1:00-2:15 pm      Lunch

What is at stake in editing and translating ancient texts? A Historical perspective—2. Chair: K. Chemla

2:15-3:30 pm      Stéphane Schmitt (CNRS-SPHERE & SAW) & Jeff Loveland (University of Cincinnati)

Poinsinet’s Edition of the Naturalis Historia (1771-1782) and the Revival of Pliny in the Sciences of the Enlightenment

Commentary by: Florence Bretelle-Establet

3:30-4:00 am      Break

4:00-5:15 pm      George Vlahakis (Hellenic Open University)

Greeks on Hellenes. Ancient Greek scientific texts critically edited in 18^th-19^th century Greece

Commentary by: Magali Dessagnes

5:15-5:30 pm      General discussion