Emilie Savage-Smith (born 20 August 1941) is an American-British

historian of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...

known for her work on

science in the medieval Islamic world Science in the medieval Islamic world was the science developed and practised during the Islamic Golden Age under the Umayyads of Córdoba, the Abbadids of Seville, the Samanids, the Ziyarids, the Buyids in Persia, the Abbasid Caliphate and ...

and

medicine in the medieval Islamic world In the history of medicine, "Islamic medicine" is the science of medicine developed in the Middle East, and usually written in Arabic, the '' lingua franca'' of Islamic civilization. Islamic medicine adopted, systematized and developed the med ...

Education and career

Savage-Smith was born on 20 August 1941, in the US, and became a

dual citizen Dual or Duals may refer to: Paired/two things * Dual (mathematics), a notion of paired concepts that mirror one another ** Dual (category theory), a formalization of mathematical duality *** see more cases in :Duality theories * Dual (grammatical ...

of the UK and US in 2003. She was an undergraduate at

DePauw University DePauw University is a private liberal arts university in Greencastle, Indiana. It has an enrollment of 1,972 students. The school has a Methodist heritage and was originally known as Indiana Asbury University. DePauw is a member of both the G ...

, graduating in 1962, and completed her Ph.D. in 1969 at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

. Her doctoral dissertation, ''Galen on Nerves, Veins and Arteries'', was a

critical edition Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in da ...

of book 16 of

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one of ...

's '' De usu partium corporis humani'', including a translation from the Arabic edition of

Hunayn ibn Ishaq Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (also Hunain or Hunein) ( ar, أبو زيد حنين بن إسحاق العبادي; (809–873) was an influential Nestorian Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist. During the apex of the Islamic ...

. She is retired as Professor of the History of Islamic Science at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, where she continues to be Fellow Archivist of

St Cross College, Oxford St Cross College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1965, St Cross is an all-graduate college with gothic and traditional-style buildings on a central site in St Giles', just south of Pusey Street. It a ...

and a senior research consultant for the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second- ...

. She is the president of the Society for the History of Medieval Technology and Science. Before moving to the Oriental Institute at the University of Oxford she was a researcher at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, in the Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies and in the Medical History Division of the Department of Anatomy.

Books

Savage-Smith is the author or coauthor of: *''Lost Maps of the Caliphs: Drawing the World in Eleventh-Century Cairo'' (with Yossef Rapoport, University of Chicago Press, 2018) *''Medieval Islamic Medicine'' (with Peter E. Pormann, Edinburgh University Press, 2007) *''Medieval Views of the Cosmos'' (with

Evelyn Edson Evelyn Edson (born November 28, 1940 in Oklahoma City) is an author, medievalist, and professor emerita of history. She is known for her three books on the history of cartography. Biography She graduated in 1962 with a B.A. from Swarthmore College ...

, Bodleian Library, 2004) *''Islamicate Celestial Globes: Their History, Construction, and Use'' (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985) *''Islamic Geomancy and a Thirteenth-Century Divinatory Device'' (with M. B. Smith, Undena Press, 1980) Additionally, she has contributed as an editor or translator to multiple other books including critical editions of works from the medieval Islamic world,

edited volume An edited volume or edited collection is a collection of scholarly or scientific chapters written by different authors. The chapters in an edited volume are original works (not republished works). Alternative terms for edited volume are ''contribut ...

s, and catalogues of collections.

Recognition

Savage-Smith was named a

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom # C ...

in 2010. She became a corresponding fellow of the

Medieval Academy of America The Medieval Academy of America (MAA; spelled Mediaeval until c. 1980) is the largest organization in the United States promoting the field of medieval studies. It was founded in 1925 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The academy publishes ...

in 2020. In 2014, DePauw University gave her an honorary doctorate. In 2016, the Scientific Instrument Society chose Savage-Smith as their Gerard Turner Memorial Lecturer and gave her the Turner Medal. A workshop in honour of her career and contributions to the history of Islamic science, ''Health, Magic and Stars: Workshop on the history of Islamic science'', was held at Oxford in 2019. Her book ''Medieval Islamic Medicine'' was one of three 2008 winners of the British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize.

References

External links

Home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Savage-Smith, Emilie Living people 20th-century American historians American women historians British women historians American historians of science DePauw University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Academics of the University of Oxford Fellows of St Cross College, Oxford Fellows of the British Academy 1941 births 21st-century American women writers 21st-century American historians 21st-century British historians Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom American emigrants to England Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America