Sex Across the Border: Fractured Reflections of Arab Sexual Attitudes in Some Latin Texts

By Professor Everett Rowson (New York University) 

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Time:  7:00pm

Location: Faculty House, Columbia University

This talk will cast an Arabist's eye on two medieval Latin texts, a tenth-century account of the martyrdom of St. Pelagius in Cordoba and Alan de Lille's twelfth-century Complaint of Nature attacking "unnatural" sexual practices, with the hope of elucidating some of the textual problems that have stymied Europeanists.  Some observations will also be made about other cases of treatment of sexual topics across the Arabic-Latin border, in particular Avicenna's medical discussion of sodomy in its Arabic and Latin versions.

If you would like to join us for dinner at 6:00 pm, please RSVP to the seminar's rapporteur Vivek Gupta (vg2182@columbia.edu) no later than Monday, December 1, 2014. Please note that the cost of dinner is $25, payable by check made out to "Columbia University."

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SEMINAR ON ARABIC STUDIES