Mw. dr. T.A.M. Smidt van Gelder-Fontaine (Resianne Fontaine)
Education and current position
Born in Amsterdam, I studied Semitic Languages at the University of Amsterdam, where I received my MA in 1976 (major: Hebrew, minors: Arabic and History of Philosophy). My Ph. D. was on the Sources and Structure of the Ha-Emunah ha-Ramah (The Exalted Faith) of the twelfth-century Jewish thinker Abraham Ibn Daud (University of Amsterdam, 1986). From 1986-1990 I was a post-doc at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, and from 1992-1998 I was a research-fellow of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Sciences at the same Institution. In 1994 I started teaching at the Vrije Universiteit, where I worked at the Dept of Semitic Languages from 1998-2001. In September 2001 I switched to the Dept of Hebrew at the University of Amsterdam, where I have worked as an associate professor (universitair docent) ever since. In 2007 (March-August) I was a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Jerusalem in a research group entitled “Transmission and Appropriation of the Secular Sciences and Philosophy in Medieval Judaism: Comparative Perspectives, Universal and National Aspects". In the summer of 2012 I will participate in a research-group entitled "Jewish Physicians in medieval Christian Europe: Professional Knowledge as a Cultural Change" at the same Institute.
Research
During my studies I became interested in medieval Jewish philosophy and its background. Over the years I have specialized in this field, working primarily on medieval translations of philosophical and scientific texts from Arabic into Hebrew, and since a few years also on translations from Latin into Hebrew. In general my research concerns editions of medieval Hebrew texts that are still in manuscript. I am currently working on an edition of a part (on natural philosophy) of the 13th -century Hebrew ‘encyclopedia’, the Midrash ha-Hokhmah. Another area of interest is the reception of medieval Jewish philosophy and science on the part of Jewish scholars in the early modern period, in particular in Pinhas Hurwitz’s Sefer ha-Berit. Moreover, over the years I have become interested in the history and development of medieval Hebrew philosophical terminology. Since 2009 I have been active as a co-organizer of the international project PESHAT - A Digitized Multilingual Thesaurus ofthe Medieval Philosophical and ScientificHebrew terminology, together with Gad Freudenthal (Paris/Geneva); Reimund Leicht, (Jerusalem), and Giuseppe Veltri (Halle). I am a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Aleph: Historical Studies in Science & Judaism, published by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; of the Editorial Board of Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Thought (Springer), and of Studia Rosenthaliana (Peeters).
Together with Gad Freudenthal (Paris/Geneva) I have co-organized the congress ‘Latin into Hebrew. The Transfer of Philosophical, Scientific, and Medical Lore from Christian to Jewish Cultures in Southern Europa (12-15 th Centuries)’, held in Paris at the CNRS, 7-9 December 2009. A volume with selected publications edited by the two organizers is scheduled for 2012.
Verwijzing
Teaching
Over the years, I have been teaching various subjects. In the department's BA programme, I am currently teaching a first-year introductory course in medieval Jewish cultural history; a second-year course in Biblical and Targumic Aramaic, and a third-year course on medieval Hebrew ‘ethical’ literature. In the MA programme in Hebrew language and culture, I am co-teaching the Methodology course as well as a course on ‘introductions’ (haqdamot) in various genres of Hebrew literature.