29424 - Seminars (1) (LM) (G.C)

Course contents

Babylon and the Origins of Knowledge

The historical writings of Galileo, Jorge Luis Borges, Ibn Khaldun, Herodotus, and the Hebrew Bible present a city of Babylon full of contradictions. At once sinful and reverential, a site of magic and science, rational and irrational, Babylon seemed destined to resound in the historical imagination as the birthplace of knowledge itself. But how does the myth compare to history? How did the Babylonians themselves envisage their own knowledge? And how do Babylonian notions of knowledge, wisdom, and "scribal craft" compare with those which later traditions would call “philosophy?” In this course we will take a cross comparative approach, investigating the intellectual history of the ancient city and its continuity in the scientific and literary imagination.

Readings/Bibliography

Readings and Topics

Babylonia (what is today southern Iraq) saw the native development of law codes, astronomy, monumental architecture, empires, the writing of epic literature, and the worship of cult statues. These accomplishments survived in the memories of later authors long after the extinction of cuneiform cultures. Yet Orientalist tropes have dominated the ways in which scholars have characterized Babylonian rationality and science. In our readings we will explore why such frameworks persists in contemporary historical writing, how they affect our modern attitudes towards the Middle East, and non-Western epistemology.

Course readings will also focus on the question: What counts as a “primary source”? Exploring the intellectual history of Babylon—by way of cuneiform texts in translation and through the imaginative and analytical writings of later historical authors—provides a rich opportunity to engage with the disciplinary practice of textual analysis and historical writing.

 

Selected Bibliography

Bahrani, Zainab. 2007. "The Babylonian Visual Image." In The Babylonian World, edited by Gwendolyn Leick, 155–170. New York: Routledge.

Bloor, David. 1976. Knowledge and Social Imagery. Boston: Routledge & K. Paul. [selected sections]

Foster, Benjamin. 2006. Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature. Bethesda, Maryland: CDL Press. [Atrahasis, pp.227ff. and Enuma Elish pp.436ff.]

Landsberger, Benno. (1926) 1976. The Conceptual Autonomy of the Babylonian World. Translated by Thorkild Jacobsen, Benjamin Foster and Heinrich von Siebenthal. Vol. 1, Monographs on the Ancient Near East.

Liverani, Mario. 2016. Imagining Babylon: The Modern Story of an Ancient City. Translated by Ailsa Campbell. Boston: De Gruyter. [Chapter 1]

Lloyd, G. E. R. 2009. Disciplines in the Making: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Elites, Learning, and Innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Chapter 1: "What is Philosophy?]

Luis Borges, Jorge. 1962. Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings. Translated by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby. New York: New Directions. [“The Library of Babel”, " The Lottery of Babylon"]

Robson, Eleanor. 2008. Mathematics in Ancient Iraq: A Social History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. [selected sections]

Rochberg, Francesca. 2016. "Canon and Power in Cuneiform Scribal Scholarship." In Problems of Canonicity and Identity Formation in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, edited by Kim Ryholt and Gojko Barmamovic, 217–229. Copenhagen: Museum Tusulanum Press.

Steele, John M. 2008. A Brief Introduction to Astronomy in the Middle East. London: Saqi.

Van de Mieroop, Marc. 2016. Philosophy Before the Greeks: The Pursuit of Truth in Ancient Babylonia. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Teaching methods

The course will focus on developing analytical and historiographical skills through readings in pre-modern scholarly, scientific, and literary texts. Students will be provided with the tools to develop both their research skills and their ability to draw conceptual and historical parallels between texts from a broad set of cultural and chronological contexts. Student discussion is encouraged and required.

Assessment methods

Oral Exam:

Oral examination in which the student will be asked to display his or her knowledge of the contents dealt with during the seminar, as well as the ability to comment on the primary sources and link the different topics dealt with in class.

The students who attend the course will be asked to choose a theme to explore in depth, either from those topics suggested as supplementary readings or to a separate topic to be arranged with the instructor.

Office hours

See the website of Eduardo Andres Escobar Briones