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The University of Southampton
The Parkes Institute

Cancelled: Howard Rein Lecture 2022 Event

Howard Rein
Time:
18:00 - 19:30
Date:
3 May 2022
Venue:
Lecture Theatre C and online via Zoom.

For more information regarding this event, please email Clodagh Owens at parkes@soton.ac.uk .

Event details

Unfortunately due to a series of difficult circumstances, we have had to cancel this lecture. We apologies for any inconvenience caused and hope we can reschedule the lecture for 22-23. Thank you all so much for your continued support and interest in our lectures, we hope to see you soon.

 Contours of “Jewish medicine”: cues from the Hebrew Book of Asaf

The contours of what should or could count as “Jewish medicine” constitutes an old and bold question, central to questions which occupied the late Howard Rein. Such questions also play a part in what is probably the earliest extant Hebrew medical text: the Book of Asaf (Sefer Asaf) or Sefer Refu’ot (Book of Remedies). The Book of Asaf is very important not only in the history of the Hebrew medical sciences, but also in the history of medicine as a whole, exemplifying interesting links with medical knowledge coming from other cultures. This lecture will explore some contours of “Jewish medicine” as they appear in Sefer Asaf: it will look at how the text situates itself vis-a-vis foreign knowledge. The lecture will also discuss the role of Hebrew as a “bridging language” in medical knowledge, serving as an effective vehicle for cross-cultural transmissions.   

Speaker Information

Dr Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim is a Reader in the History Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research deals with the history of Eurasian medicine and the transmission of medical knowledge along the so-called ‘Silk-Roads’. Within this general scope she has been working on both early Tibetan medicine and early Hebrew medicine.

She has co-edited three volumes with Anna Akasoy and Charles Burnett: Rashīd al-Dīn as an Agent and Mediator of Cultural Exchanges in Ilkhanid Iran (2013); Islam and Tibet: Interactions along the Musk Routes (2011) and Astro-Medicine: Astrology and Medicine, East and West (2008), and is an associate editor of the journal Asian Medicine (Brill).

Her book ReOrienting Histories of Medicine: Encounters along the Silk Roads (2021), analyses a number of case studies of Eurasian medical encounters, by looking at medical manuscripts found in key Eurasian nodes of the medieval world--Dunhuang, Kucha, the Cairo Genizah and Tabriz. 

 

This event will be chaired by Helen Spurling (online) and Claire Le Foll (in person).

Dr Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim
Dr Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim
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