Date/Time
Date(s) - 22 Mar 2016
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Location
19 University Place
Category(ies) No Categories
Presented by the Medieval and Renaissance Center at NYU as part of its Distinguished Lecture Series:
Natalie Zemon Davis
University of Toronto, History
“Leo Africanus Discovers ‘Comedy’”
This talk compares two traditions of theatre and of theatre criticism on either side of the Mediterranean in the early 16th century.
From Professor Davis:
“Hasan al-Wazzan, known in Europe as “Leo Africanus,” was a Moroccan diplomat, who was captured by Christian pirates and spent most of the 1520s in Rome as a Christian before returning to North Africa and Islam. I will describe the traditions of Arabic and Islamic theatre that he knew and his reaction to them as a learned man of letters and poet. What was the theatrical practice he observed in Rome? And what did he think of the Italian treatment of Averroes’ commentary on Aristotle?”
Tuesday, March 22
6-8pm
19 University Place, 1st Floor, Great Room