Curriculum Vitae Ahmed Ragab Richard T. Watson Assistant Professor of Science and Religion Harvard Divinity School CSWR, 42 Francis Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138 Ahmed_ragab@harvard.edu 617.496.9364 Education PhD, History and Philosophy of Science, Islamic History École Pratiques des Hautes Études, Paris - 2011 MD, Qasr al-aini School of Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo - 2006 Current Academic Positions Richard T. Watson Assistant Professor of Science and Religion, Harvard Divinity School. Faculty Director, Science, Religion and Culture Program at Harvard Divinity School. Affiliated faculty, The Department of the History of Science, Harvard University. Member on the Standing Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality, Harvard University. Member on the Steering Committee of Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program. Member on the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies, Harvard University. Previous Academic Positions Lecturer, The Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, July 2010-June 2011 Postdoctoral Fellow, The Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, September 2008-July 2010 Visiting lecturer, Harvard Divinity School, August 2009 - December 2009 Associate researcher, Centre d Études et de Documentation Économiques, Juridiques et Sociales (CEDEJ); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), January 2005- July 2011 Director of the Program on Science and Religion, Centre d Études et de Documentation Économiques, Juridiques et Sociales (CEDEJ); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), 2005-July 2010
Previous Experience Expert Consultant, Program on Public policies, professional practices and agents conduct in relation to Avian Flu (Egypt, France, India, Niger, UK, Vietnam); Agence Inter- Établissements de la Recherche pour le Développement (AIRD), May - August 2008 Consultant, Platform on HIV in MENA and Subsaharan Africa, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), May-August 2007 Physician, Kasr al-aini Cairo Univeristy Teaching Hospital, September 2003-March 2007 Publications (Published and in preparation) A. Published Books: Translation (to English and French) of Aḥmad ibn Khalaf al-murādī s Kitāb al-asrār fī Natāʿij al-afkār : The Book of Secrets in the Results of Ideas. Milano: Leonardo3, 2008 B. Books in Preparation: A Biography of a Hospital: Medicine, Religion and Charity in the Medieval Middle East [In preparation for publication by Cambridge University Press] With Katharine Park, Knowledge on the Move: Cultures of Science in the Medieval World [In preparation for publication by Chicago University Press] C. Book Projects: In the Name of God the Healer: Prophetic Medicine in the Medieval and Modern Middle East. D. Published Articles and Book Sections: History of Science, in Women and Islamic Cultures: Disciplinary Paradigms and Approaches 2003-2013, edited by Suad Joseph, Boston, Leiden: Brill, 2013 Commentary on Cycles of Cathay - Sinology, Philology, and Histories of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) in the United States by Christian de Pee, Fragments: Journal of History, vol. 2, 2012. Prophetic Traditions and Modern Medicine in the Middle East: Resurrection, Reinterpretation, and Reconstruction, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 132:4, 2012. Pp. 657-73
Book review of The World of Pharmacy and Pharmacists in Mamluk Cairo by Leigh Chipman, Speculum, 87:1, January 2012. Pp. 196-97 Islam and Science in Routledge Companion to Religion and Science, ed. James W. Haag, Gregory R. Peterson, Michael L. Spezio, London: Routledge, 2011 Epistemic Authority of Women in the Medieval Middle East, HAWWA: Journal of Women in the Middle East and Islamic World, 8:2, 2010. Pp. 181-216 Madman Walking: the image of the mad in Egyptian press, Egypte-Monde Arabe, Troisième Série, 4, 2007. Pp. 227-246 The Egyptian Epidemics: The history of epidemic and endemic diseases in Egypt and the professionalization of medicine, Chronicles (the American University in Cairo), Spring 2007 E. Articles and Book Sections in Preparation: One, Two or Many Sexes: Sex differentiation in medieval medical Islamicate thought - Manuscript under review. Sira and asbab al-nuzul: Context as commentary; the text generating context; is chronology discoverable? in The Routledge Companion to the Quran, ed. Daniel A. Madigan, and Maria Massi Dakake, London: Routledge (manuscript in preparation) Entries on Al-Andalus/Ibn Rushd, al-biruni, al-tusi, Ikhwan al-safa (Brothren of Purity), Islamic Planetary theories and Cosmology, Islamic Religious/Theological Cosmologies, Islamic Theories of Spontaneous Generation and Evolution in Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, ed. Muriel Gargaud. SpringerOnline (manucsript in preparation) Epistemes, Technes and Hermeneutics: the making of the Scientific Interpretation of the Quran in Deliberating Religion, Science and Progress in the Global Public Sphere, ed. Ulrika Martensson and Filip Ivanovic, London: Ashgate Series on Science and Religion, (manuscript in preparation) Reiteration and representation: Asbab al-nuzul & the discursive formation of the Quranic narrative, Journal of Quranic Studies (Manuscript in preparation) Pilgrimage, Geography and Genealogy: The epistemology of places in Islamic scientific and religious discourses, Fragments: Journal of History (Manuscript in preparation)
Unpublished lectures and papers Beyond Conflict and Harmony: Religion and Science in the Twenty-first century at Cleveland City Club, March 7 th, 2014 Knowledge will set you free: Critique as an Ethic of Liberation, Keynote address at Harvard Divinity School Diversity and Exploration Program, November 2013. Religion and Global Health at Harvard Global Health Institute, October, 2013 Scientific Expertise and Islamic Legal Opinions at STS-IGLP workshop on expertise in Science, Technology and Law, Harvard Kennedy School STS program, Harvard Law School, April 18-19, 2013 Hospitals as road posts in an urban map at Urbanism, Spirituality and Wellbeing Initiative Panel Themes in History, Harvard University, April 11, 2013 Animals for people and people for animals: Animals in medieval and early modern Islamicate Sciences at Communities like You: Animals in Islam; the Fifth Annual Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies Conference at Harvard University, April 5-6, 2013 So we may learn from our predecessors : Medical biographies and the arrangement of the medical community in the medieval Middle East at the annual conference of the History of Science Society, San Diego, November 2012 Reading an Islamicate Hospital: Charity, Medicine and Tradition in Liminal Spaces at Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies Program Faculty Seminar, Harvard University, September 2012 Between Text(s) and Practice(s): Islamic Prophetic medicine in scientific and religious knowledge regimes the annual Isthmus lecture presented to the Isthmus Society of Science and Religion, University of Wisconsin-Madison, April 2012 Disciplining and Persuading : Science, Religion and the Making of Knowledge the inaugural lecture of the Richard T. Watson Professorship of Science and Religion at Harvard University, Harvard Divinity School, March 2012 Moving Sexes and Shifting Genders: Medicine, religion and law in the making of medieval Islamicate bodies invited lecture presented at Wesleyan University, February 2012 Bodies in Transformation: Castration and Castrates in Medieval Islamic Society presented at the Annual Conference of the American Academy of Religion-Queer Studies in Religion Group, San Francisco, November 2011 Reiteration and representation: Asbab al-nuzul & the discursive formation of the Quranic narrative presented at the Seventh Biannual Conference on the Qurʾān (The Qurʾān:
Text, Society and Culture) at the School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS, London, November 2011 Laws, Ethics and (hi)stories from distant lands: Islamic law and the making of the medical profession in the medieval Middle East presented at the conference Global perspectives on the history of Chinese legal medicine, University of Michigan Ann-Arbor, October 2011 The Question of Anatomy: towards a different understanding of the interactions of religion and science in the medieval Middle East, presented at the Annual Conference of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), Boston, November 2009 Prophets of Medicine and Medicine of the Prophet: Debates on medical theory and practice in the medieval Middle East, lecture for Harvard University Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Harvard Society of Arab Students, Harvard University, November 2009 The Traveling Physician: medicine in travel literature about Ottoman Egypt, presented at the Biannual Conference of the European Association for History of Medicine, Heidelberg, September 2009 Bīmāristān al-manṣūrī: State, religion and medical practice in Egypt 1285-1382, presented at the 23rd International Conference of History of Science and Technology, Budapest, July 2009. Notes on Epistemological Debates in the Medieval Middle Eastern Science and Philosophy, lecture for Early Science Working Group, the Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, April 2009 On Methodology: New approaches to the study of medieval Islamic hospitals, presented at The Meeting of the Three Societies, Oxford, July 2008 How to write the history of medieval Islamic hospitals?, keynote lecture at the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the Institute for History, Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, March 2008. Films: (Director) Cairo: Road Trip, Documentary 55min, 2005 (Opening Film for Cleopatre sur Le Pont d Avignon Film Festival, 2006) Teaching A. Courses taught as Assistant Professor (from the academic year 2011-2012) Bodies and Sexualities in the Medieval Middle East: Medical, Cultural, and Religious Views (HDS 3587/HISTSCI 108/HSCI E-205), Harvard Divinity School and the
Department of the History of Science (also offered as a distance-education course through Harvard Extension school in Fall 2012), Harvard University, Fall 2011, Fall 2012 Science and Religion: Debates, Approaches, and Controversies (HDS 3341/HISTSCI 209), Harvard Divinity School and the Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Fall 2011, Fall 2012 Crusades, Plagues and Hospitals: Medicine, Religion and Society in the Medieval Mediterranean (HDS 3589/HISTSCI 113) Harvard Divinity School and the Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Spring 2013 The Word(s) of the Prophet: Prophetic Traditions through History (HDS 3367/Religion 1860) Harvard Divinity School and the Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University, Spring 2013. Knowledge on the Move: Cultures of Science and Religion in the Medieval World (HDS 3340/HISTSCI 101) Harvard Divinity School and the Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Spring 2012 (Co-taught with Professor Katharine Park) Quranic Exegeses Through History: Themes, Questions, and Controversies (HDS 3598/ Religion 1808) Harvard Divinity School and the Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University, Spring 2012. Crusades, Plagues, and Hospitals: Medicine, Religion, and Society in the Medieval Mediterranean (HSCI E-200), Harvard Extension School, Fall 2011 B. Courses taught as lecturer (Prior to the academic year 2011-2012) Bodies, Sexualities and Medicine in the medieval Middle East (HISTSCI 108), The Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, spring 2011. Science and Islam: Debates, approaches and controversies (graduate seminar) (HISTSCI 209), The Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, spring 2011. Two Scientific Revolutions: from the classical age of Islamic Sciences to the scientific world of modern Europe (HISTSCI 111), The Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, fall 2010. Crusades, Plagues and Hospitals: medicine and society in the Islamic Middle Ages (HISTSCI 113), The Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, fall 2010. Historical Perspectives on Quranic Exegesis (HDS 3598), Harvard Divinity School, spring 2010. Science and Religion in the Middle East (HISTSCI 109), The Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, fall 2009.
History of Science and Culture in the Middle East (HISTSCI 109), The Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, spring 2009. Student Activities Advising Advisor, Graduate Student Conference on Religion, Harvard Divinity School Advisor, Early Science Working Group, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University (with professor Shigehisa Kuriyama) Advisor, Middle East Beyond Borders: Culture, Religion and Politics Student Working Group, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Mahindra Humanities Center, Harvard University (with Professor Malika Zaghal) Academic Memberships International Society for Science and Religion (Elected) Commission on History of Science and Technology in Islamic Societies (Elected) History of Science Society American Academy of Religion Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Honors and Distinctions Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize from the Undergraduate Council at Harvard University, spring 2011 Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from the Derek-Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University, spring 2010 Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from the Derek-Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University, spring 2009 Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from the Derek-Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University, Fall 2008 Travel grant of the Commission on History of Science and Technology in Islamic Societies, March 2008 Grant of the twenty-third International Congress of History of Science and Technology, Budapest, March 2008 Grant of the French Center for Culture and Cooperation (CFCC) and the French ministry of Foreign Affairs for Advanced Research, September 2007