Sonja Brentjes

Sonja Brentjes (born 1951)^[1] is a German historian of science, historian of mathematics, and historian of cartography known for her work on mapmapking and mathematics in medieval Islam.

Education and career

Brentjes is the daughter of archaeologists, orientalists, and Islamists Burchard Brentjes [de] and Helga Wilke Brentjes.^[2]

She earned a diploma in mathematics from TU Dresden in 1973 and completed her doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) there in 1977.^[3] Her doctoral dissertation, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der linearen Optimierung von den Anfängen zur Konstituierung als selbständige mathematische Theorie - eine Studie zum Problem der Entstehung mathematischer Disziplinen im 20. Jahrhundert, concerned the history of linear programming, and was supervised by Hans Wussing.^[4] She earned a second diploma in Near Eastern studies in 1982 from Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, a second doctorate (Dr. sc. nat.) from Leipzig University in 1989, and a habilitation from Leipzig University in 1991.^[3]

She worked as an assistant professor in the Karl Sudhoff Institute for the History of Medicine and Sciences at Leipzig University from 1976 to 1997, with tenure beginning in 1980. After holding a sequence of research positions at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Institute for the History of Science at Goethe University Frankfurt, and University of Oklahoma, she became an associate professor at the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in 2004. Since 2007 she has been a researcher at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the University of Seville, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, where she has been affiliated since 2012.^[3]

Recognition

Brentjes became a corresponding member of the International Academy of the History of Science in 1995, and a full member in 2002.^[5] She received one of the two Kenneth O. May Prize medals awarded by the International Commission on the History of Mathematics on 26 July 2021 at the International Congress for History and Philosophy of Science in Prague.^[6]

Books

Brentjes' books include:

• Ibn Sina (Avicenna): Der fürstliche Meister aus Buchara (with Burchard Brentjes, Teubner, 1979)^[7]
• Travellers from Europe in the Ottoman and Safavid Empires, 16th–17th Centuries: Seeking, Transforming, Discarding Knowledge (Ashgate, 2010)^[8]
• Globalization of Knowledge in the Post-Antique Mediterranean, 700–1500 (edited with Jürgen Renn, Routledge, 2016)^[9]
• 1001 Distortions: How (Not) to Narrate History of Science, Medicine, and Technology in Non-Western Cultures (edited with Taner Edis and Lutz Richter-Bernburg, Ergon Verlag, 2016)^[10]
• Teaching and Learning the Sciences in Islamicate Societies (800–1700) (Brepols, 2018)^[11]

References

1. Birth year from German National Library catalogy, retrieved 2020-09-12
2. Vom Sklaven zum Gelehrten: Uni Halle veranstaltet Tagung zu Anton Wilhelm Amo, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, 18 October 2018, retrieved 2020-09-12
3. Curriculum vitae (PDF), Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, retrieved 2020-09-12
4. Sonja Brentjes at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
5. Sonja Brentjes, International Academy of the History of Science, retrieved 2020-09-12
6. Barrow-Green, June (2021). "Awarding of the May Prizes for 2021". Historia Mathematica. 56: 1–3. doi:10.1016/j.hm.2021.08.001.
7. Reviews of Ibn Sina (Avicenna):

   • Kolesnyk, A. (January 1980), Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 28 (11): 1406–1407, ProQuest 1298959141{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
   • Janssens, J. (March 1983), Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, 45 (1): 126–127, JSTOR 40884213{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
8. Reviews of Travellers from Europe in the Ottoman and Safavid Empires:

   • Akasoy, Anna (2011), Early Science and Medicine, 16 (6): 623–625, doi:10.1163/157338211X607899, JSTOR 41350358{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
   • Iqbal, Muzaffar (Summer 2011), "Review", Islam & Science, 9 (1): 56–61
   • Rius, Mònica (2012), "Review", Suhayl: International Journal for the History of the Exact and Natural Sciences in Islamic Civilisation, 11: 253–255
   • Tommasino, Pier Mattia (January 2012), Journal of Early Modern History, 16 (3): 281–284, doi:10.1163/157006512x624155{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
   • Schmidl, Petra (February 2012), NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin, 20 (1): 54–56, doi:10.1007/s00048-011-0064-3{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
   • Nayar, Pramod K. (Summer 2012), The Sixteenth Century Journal, 43 (2): 489–491, doi:10.1086/SCJ24245445, JSTOR 24245445{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
   • Soykut, Mustafa (2013), Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 56 (3): 503–513, doi:10.1163/15685209-12341317, JSTOR 43303561{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
   • Schunka, Alexander (2014), Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, 41 (2): 301–303, JSTOR 43612504{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
   • Andrea, Bernadette (January 2014), Iranian Studies, 47 (3): 483–486, doi:10.1080/00210862.2013.876279, S2CID 162333358{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
9. Review of Globalization of Knowledge in the Post-Antique Mediterranean:

   • Carpentieri, Nicola (December 2017), Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies, 4 (1–2), doi:10.1515/jtms-2017-0009, S2CID 166116868{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
10. Review of 1001 Distortions:

    • Akasoy, Anna A. (May 2018), Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 81 (2): 357–358, doi:10.1017/s0041977x18000526, S2CID 165623444{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
11. Reviews of Teaching and Learning the Sciences in Islamicate Societies:

    • Arslan, Taha Yasin (July 2019), İslam Araştırmaları Dergisi, 42: 155–159, doi:10.26570/isad.571965{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • El-Rouayheb, Khaled (September 2019), History of Education, 49 (5): 727–729, doi:10.1080/0046760x.2019.1663943, S2CID 203454835{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Buresi, Pascal (October–December 2019), Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 62 (248): 371–374, doi:10.4000/ccm.3902, S2CID 241799778{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Ragep, Sally P. (December 2019), Isis, 110 (4): 798–800, doi:10.1086/706884, S2CID 241822094{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Zubani, Alessia (December 2019), "Review", Abstracta Iranica, 40–41
    • Caiazzo, Anna (2020), "Review", Bulletin critique des Annales islamologiques, 34: 41–44
    • Gardiner, Noah (2020), Renaissance Quarterly, 73 (2): 690–692, doi:10.1017/rqx.2020.65{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Chaney, Eric (February 2020), Centaurus, 62 (1): 208–209, doi:10.1111/1600-0498.12249, S2CID 219007353{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Umut, Hasan (June 2020), Ilahiyat Studies, 11 (1): 147–150, doi:10.12730/13091719.2020.111.203, S2CID 225663194{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Dahmani, Nour (June 2020), "Review", Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 147

External links

• Sonja Brentjes publications indexed by Google Scholar