Dear members of the Bilkent community,
As part of its speakers series, the Department of Turkish Literature is happy to invite you to a talk by Professor Victoria Rowe Holbrook (Bilgi University) entitled “What is Reality and How Can I Find It? Plato, the Gracious Quran, and Romance” to take place on Tuesday December 17th at 15.40.
The talk will be given in English, in C Blok Amfi.
All are welcome. Light refreshments will be served.
Summary:
We have long known that texts of Ancient Greek philosophy were translated into Arabic during the 9th-10 centuries, and it is often said that Tasavvuf is Neoplatonic. But how can Platonic material in the 7th-century Quran be explained? And what role did this material play in the plotting of Persian and Turkish quest romances?
Victoria Rowe Holbrook teaches philosophy in the Faculty of Architecture at Istanbul Bilgi University. She founded and directed the program in Ottoman and Modern Turkish Literary and Cultural studies at the Ohio State University 1987-2005. She is the author of The Unreadable Shores of Love: Turkish Modernity and Mystic Romance and several translations from Turkish.