STEM Ed+ Commons | Alexandre Roberts | Activity https://stemedplus.hcommons.org/members/amroberts/activity/ Activity feed for Alexandre Roberts. Sat, 04 Apr 2026 15:39:46 +0000 https://buddypress.org/?v=10.6.0 en-US 30 hourly 2 21bd27f0f0a0460ba0dcfc9c40bdb40b Alexandre Roberts's profile was updated https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1943410/ Fri, 06 Feb 2026 17:49:15 +0000 0 2d5afbbcf536aaa4b2c98dba7b5a29d0 Alexandre Roberts replied to the topic feature request: email notifications to owner for group/collection curation in the forum MSU Educators https://hcommons.org/groups/commons-room/forum/topic/feature-request-email-notifications-to-owner-for-group-collection-curation/#post-98409 Tue, 27 Jan 2026 20:02:09 +0000 Hi Bonnie,

Many thanks for your helpful replies! And thank you for taking my feedback into account.

About groups/collections, what you write is very helpful as well, but it also makes me wonder if there might be some way of merging those two systems, at least from a user-interface perspective, such that there wouldn't be two separate things,…[Read more]

]]> cf8781e8a00bbf4b913df3389ce36b5d Alexandre Roberts wrote a new post, University subsidy for AI ventures, on the site The Codex https://codex.hcommons.org/?p=49 Tue, 20 Jan 2026 15:23:37 +0000

]]> 5016b99c1dd09390daf09b9fca5e762e Alexandre Roberts replied to the topic feature request: email notifications to owner for group/collection curation in the forum MSU Educators https://hcommons.org/groups/commons-room/forum/topic/feature-request-email-notifications-to-owner-for-group-collection-curation/#post-98177 Thu, 15 Jan 2026 16:55:44 +0000 It would also be nice if there could be a single page listing all the different pending requests for different groups, for those of us who "own" (or moderate/curate) more than one group. That way I could just go down the list of pending requests, rather than having to navigate, in a rather cumbersome way, to each collection and its "Requests" tab…[Read more]

]]> 47d9a7d23af26c67cdabd6fe35138011 Alexandre Roberts started the topic feature request: email notifications to owner for group/collection curation in the forum MSU Educators https://hcommons.org/groups/commons-room/forum/topic/feature-request-email-notifications-to-owner-for-group-collection-curation/ Thu, 15 Jan 2026 16:43:48 +0000 A number of my uploaded papers that I have submitted to topical groups (e.g., the paper "Disentangling Alchemy" submitted to the Group "Alchemy") are still pending months later. I suspect that this is because group owners do not receive any notification that they have requests pending for review. This is in contrast to how Zenodo (using similar…[Read more]

]]> 1a18291bdb9db593a3e424ac1f6fafb5 Alexandre Roberts's profile was updated https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1918576/ Tue, 20 May 2025 17:03:11 +0000 0 163ae995bea5f38b24704c97d02ddb35 Alexandre Roberts wrote a new post, The Codex and the Library, on the site The Codex https://codex.hcommons.org/?p=33 Fri, 13 Dec 2024 18:00:34 +0000 What is a book? What is a library? What do we want them to be, and why does it matter?

We should answer these questions not with an appeal to conservative nostalgia for old technologies nor thoughtless […]

]]> f94f75fd1572f6588497e531fd518711 Alexandre Roberts wrote a new post, Is USC really too poor to buy books?, on the site The Codex https://codex.hcommons.org/?p=14 Thu, 12 Dec 2024 17:48:58 +0000 I, and I suspect many other humanities faculty at my university, received this message on Monday (I received the message seven times, for seven outstanding requests put in since last summer):

Due to budgetary […]

]]> fc905bb079ddc20a9dad3fff8756d01c Alexandre Roberts posted an update in the group Alchemy: ...and a prequel to that […] https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1888935/ Tue, 11 Jun 2024 07:28:43 +0000 ...and a prequel to that workshop:
https://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/semiarab/arabistik/Seminar/termine/2024_04_VIANO_Chrysopoetics_.html

]]> 0 d2283ce71b76f27dbbee70a04ae412f2 Alexandre Roberts posted an update in the group Alchemy: Abstracts from recent workshop at the Freie Universität […] https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1888934/ Tue, 11 Jun 2024 07:28:17 +0000 Abstracts from recent workshop at the Freie Universität Berlin on "Chrysopoetic Recipes and Chemical Theory in Medieval Greek and Arabic Texts," convened by L. Rau and A.M. Roberts:
https://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/semiarab/arabistik/Seminar/termine/2024_05_RAU-ROBERTS_Chrysopoetics.html

]]> 0 1e544267d0f4390cd797d657680c1103 Alexandre Roberts deposited Review of: Rustam Shukurov, Byzantine Ideas of Persia, 650-1461 in the group Islamicate Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1884671/ Wed, 01 May 2024 03:28:55 +0000 Review of: Shukurov, Rustam. Byzantine Ideas of Persia, 650–1461. London: Routledge, 2023.

ByzRev 06.2024.018

]]> 0 e5174c97823b933df5a9d9ee9c04b8d3 Alexandre Roberts deposited Review of: Rustam Shukurov, Byzantine Ideas of Persia, 650-1461 in the group Byzantine Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1884670/ Wed, 01 May 2024 03:28:49 +0000 Review of: Shukurov, Rustam. Byzantine Ideas of Persia, 650–1461. London: Routledge, 2023.

ByzRev 06.2024.018

]]> 0 fa4a46041b468e6e8fff8161ae9cf1f7 Alexandre Roberts deposited Review of: Rustam Shukurov, Byzantine Ideas of Persia, 650-1461 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1884081/ Fri, 26 Apr 2024 20:02:44 +0000 Review of: Shukurov, Rustam. Byzantine Ideas of Persia, 650–1461. London: Routledge, 2023.

ByzRev 06.2024.018

]]> 0 24769643285d9da863aee024ae4a350a Alexandre Roberts deposited Thinking about Chemistry in Byzantium and the Islamic World in the group Islamicate Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1868374/ Mon, 18 Dec 2023 03:00:16 +0000 This article investigates several discussions of “chemistry,” understood as an analysts’ category referring to theories and practices dealing with the structure and transformation of matter. By reading these texts (a treatise defending kīmiyāʾ by al-Fārābī, the famous passage from Ibn Sīnā’s Shifāʾ on transmutation, Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwā…[Read more]

]]> 0 246f7af011feb128a891a03ccb39e1e7 Alexandre Roberts deposited Thinking about Chemistry in Byzantium and the Islamic World in the group History https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1868373/ Mon, 18 Dec 2023 03:00:08 +0000 This article investigates several discussions of “chemistry,” understood as an analysts’ category referring to theories and practices dealing with the structure and transformation of matter. By reading these texts (a treatise defending kīmiyāʾ by al-Fārābī, the famous passage from Ibn Sīnā’s Shifāʾ on transmutation, Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwā…[Read more]

]]> 0 4c5e6def2590529f833c00c17a037879 Alexandre Roberts deposited Thinking about Chemistry in Byzantium and the Islamic World in the group Byzantine Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1868372/ Mon, 18 Dec 2023 03:00:03 +0000 This article investigates several discussions of “chemistry,” understood as an analysts’ category referring to theories and practices dealing with the structure and transformation of matter. By reading these texts (a treatise defending kīmiyāʾ by al-Fārābī, the famous passage from Ibn Sīnā’s Shifāʾ on transmutation, Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwā…[Read more]

]]> 0 8dabf77297be7b4b74ddf24f5cec1cf8 Alexandre Roberts deposited Thinking about Chemistry in Byzantium and the Islamic World in the group Alchemy https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1868371/ Mon, 18 Dec 2023 03:00:02 +0000 This article investigates several discussions of “chemistry,” understood as an analysts’ category referring to theories and practices dealing with the structure and transformation of matter. By reading these texts (a treatise defending kīmiyāʾ by al-Fārābī, the famous passage from Ibn Sīnā’s Shifāʾ on transmutation, Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwā…[Read more]

]]> 0 660f51364762c26b0a1eaaf03536b6be Alexandre Roberts deposited Thinking about Chemistry in Byzantium and the Islamic World in the group Islamicate Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1867265/ Sat, 09 Dec 2023 03:00:19 +0000 The term “alchemy,” born out of early modern professional polemics among chemists, is problematic as a historical category. The present article shifts away from asking what pre-modern alchemy “really” was, to asking how medieval scholars writing in Greek and Arabic thought about the practice of treating and combining naturally occurring substan…[Read more]

]]> 0 84a66bc5b961bbae377a93f0d015cc05 Alexandre Roberts deposited Thinking about Chemistry in Byzantium and the Islamic World in the group History https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1867264/ Sat, 09 Dec 2023 03:00:09 +0000 The term “alchemy,” born out of early modern professional polemics among chemists, is problematic as a historical category. The present article shifts away from asking what pre-modern alchemy “really” was, to asking how medieval scholars writing in Greek and Arabic thought about the practice of treating and combining naturally occurring substan…[Read more]

]]> 0 8cfdaf5eed58baa8aab001c7ce47dda8 Alexandre Roberts deposited Thinking about Chemistry in Byzantium and the Islamic World in the group Byzantine Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1867263/ Sat, 09 Dec 2023 03:00:03 +0000 The term “alchemy,” born out of early modern professional polemics among chemists, is problematic as a historical category. The present article shifts away from asking what pre-modern alchemy “really” was, to asking how medieval scholars writing in Greek and Arabic thought about the practice of treating and combining naturally occurring substan…[Read more]

]]> 0 8cfdaf5eed58baa8aab001c7ce47dda8 Alexandre Roberts deposited Thinking about Chemistry in Byzantium and the Islamic World in the group Alchemy https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1867262/ Sat, 09 Dec 2023 03:00:03 +0000 The term “alchemy,” born out of early modern professional polemics among chemists, is problematic as a historical category. The present article shifts away from asking what pre-modern alchemy “really” was, to asking how medieval scholars writing in Greek and Arabic thought about the practice of treating and combining naturally occurring substan…[Read more]

]]> 0 2c7f0b023ba5177e9d013422ed6caa03 Alexandre Roberts deposited Thinking about Chemistry in Byzantium and the Islamic World https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1862231/ Fri, 20 Oct 2023 10:51:00 +0000 The term “alchemy,” born out of early modern professional polemics among chemists, is problematic as a historical category. The present article shifts away from asking what pre-modern alchemy “really” was, to asking how medieval scholars writing in Greek and Arabic thought about the practice of treating and combining naturally occurring substan…[Read more]

]]> 0 abba3d73d3ba48aaae41c3341eec93cb Alexandre Roberts deposited Heretics, Dissidents, and Society: Narrating the Trial of John bar ʿAbdun in the group Syriac Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1822664/ Thu, 17 Nov 2022 02:24:58 +0000 This article analyzes narratives of a single series of eleventh-century events, the trial of Syrian Miaphysite (Jacobite) patriarch John bar ʿAbdun.

]]> 0 e8a5ce0edd76a849188a2554b8e7aef1 Alexandre Roberts deposited Heretics, Dissidents, and Society: Narrating the Trial of John bar ʿAbdun in the group Islamicate Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1822663/ Thu, 17 Nov 2022 02:24:54 +0000 This article analyzes narratives of a single series of eleventh-century events, the trial of Syrian Miaphysite (Jacobite) patriarch John bar ʿAbdun.

]]> 0 0cb31ce84010695398b961f31883b59a Alexandre Roberts deposited Heretics, Dissidents, and Society: Narrating the Trial of John bar ʿAbdun in the group History https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1822662/ Thu, 17 Nov 2022 02:24:37 +0000 This article analyzes narratives of a single series of eleventh-century events, the trial of Syrian Miaphysite (Jacobite) patriarch John bar ʿAbdun.

]]> 0 0cb31ce84010695398b961f31883b59a Alexandre Roberts deposited Heretics, Dissidents, and Society: Narrating the Trial of John bar ʿAbdun in the group Christian Arabic Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1822661/ Thu, 17 Nov 2022 02:24:37 +0000 This article analyzes narratives of a single series of eleventh-century events, the trial of Syrian Miaphysite (Jacobite) patriarch John bar ʿAbdun.

]]> 0 42b980b461fe4b9ff65b6eb2a04100b7 Alexandre Roberts deposited Heretics, Dissidents, and Society: Narrating the Trial of John bar ʿAbdun in the group Byzantine Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1822660/ Thu, 17 Nov 2022 02:24:30 +0000 This article analyzes narratives of a single series of eleventh-century events, the trial of Syrian Miaphysite (Jacobite) patriarch John bar ʿAbdun.

]]> 0 a6745be27a08ad0fd61da83024f87b73 Alexandre Roberts deposited Heretics, Dissidents, and Society: Narrating the Trial of John bar ʿAbdun https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1822640/ Wed, 16 Nov 2022 23:20:16 +0000 This article analyzes narratives of a single series of eleventh-century events, the trial of Syrian Miaphysite (Jacobite) patriarch John bar ʿAbdun.

]]> 0 ed5fda436ebf81292b69d6faa45281d1 Alexandre Roberts deposited Hierotechnicians by Name and Their Middle Byzantine Fame https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1793732/ Sat, 10 Sep 2022 16:48:35 +0000 This article examines the names of authors appearing in the front matter of our single most important witness to the Greek Alchemical Corpus, Marcianus graecus 299 (ca. tenth century). The names appear in the table of contents and in a list of authors, both original to the manuscript. The aim is to understand how these authorial attributions would…[Read more]

]]> 0 602b36b8dd40418fcbcc92b20c731a36 Alexandre Roberts deposited Byzantine Engagement with Islamicate Alchemy https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1791048/ Sat, 20 Aug 2022 02:53:26 +0000 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721264

This essay analyzes the known evidence for Byzantine engagement with what are conventionally termed “alchemical” texts, theories, and practices of the Islamic world. Much of the evidence is difficult to date. Nevertheless, the aggregated direct, indirect, and circumstantial evidence sug…[Read more]

]]> 0 403c3bdd116e5e73c2b37aaa1ba7837d Alexandre Roberts changed their profile picture https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1789713/ Sun, 07 Aug 2022 15:56:20 +0000 0 b91d5c8777f9a094509308d3614218c8 Alexandre Roberts changed their profile picture https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1789712/ Sun, 07 Aug 2022 15:55:04 +0000 0 71981660dca0d82d9aaf65c749881af8 Alexandre Roberts deposited Byzantine-Islamic Scientific Culture in the Astronomical Diagrams of Chioniades on John of Damascus in the group Science Studies and the History of Science https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1786944/ Wed, 13 Jul 2022 02:26:24 +0000 Scientific diagrams could and did appear in unexpected places. This essay discusses such an example: the diagrams that the thirteenth- to fourteenth-century scholar George-Gregory Chioniades added to a manuscript of John of Damascus's Fountain of Knowledge as part of his commentary on the text. I argue that the diagrams were a very important, if…[Read more]

]]> 0 f14fc9a29cad2f244c859863b4c3946c Alexandre Roberts deposited Byzantine-Islamic Scientific Culture in the Astronomical Diagrams of Chioniades on John of Damascus in the group Islamicate Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1786943/ Wed, 13 Jul 2022 02:26:22 +0000 Scientific diagrams could and did appear in unexpected places. This essay discusses such an example: the diagrams that the thirteenth- to fourteenth-century scholar George-Gregory Chioniades added to a manuscript of John of Damascus's Fountain of Knowledge as part of his commentary on the text. I argue that the diagrams were a very important, if…[Read more]

]]> 0 3401e27d6f39e347322d253f37d43737 Alexandre Roberts deposited Byzantine-Islamic Scientific Culture in the Astronomical Diagrams of Chioniades on John of Damascus in the group Byzantine Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1786942/ Wed, 13 Jul 2022 02:26:17 +0000 Scientific diagrams could and did appear in unexpected places. This essay discusses such an example: the diagrams that the thirteenth- to fourteenth-century scholar George-Gregory Chioniades added to a manuscript of John of Damascus's Fountain of Knowledge as part of his commentary on the text. I argue that the diagrams were a very important, if…[Read more]

]]> 0 f0e5ab61db83598660f7601ed05688f4 Alexandre Roberts deposited Byzantine-Islamic Scientific Culture in the Astronomical Diagrams of Chioniades on John of Damascus https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1786869/ Tue, 12 Jul 2022 19:12:35 +0000 Scientific diagrams could and did appear in more unexpected places. This essay discusses such an example: the diagrams that the thirteenth- to fourteenth-century scholar George-Gregory Chioniades added to a manuscript of John of Damascus's Fountain of Knowledge as part of his commentary on the text. I argue that the diagrams were a very important,…[Read more]

]]> 0 c47c4cc722bbdf961277fed8f58714d2 Alexandre Roberts deposited Islamicate Alchemy in Greek Letters on the First Page of Marcianus graecus 299 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1778015/ Mon, 11 Apr 2022 19:40:16 +0000 The famous middle Byzantine alchemical manuscript Marcianus graecus 299 contains annotations from the late Byzantine period, most prominently in its opening quire. This article examines a text on the very first page of the manuscript, a text written in a late Byzantine Greek script, but in a language other than Greek. A number of words in this…[Read more]

]]> 0 2a7dae66d4af205fa6a3f98c616c41cf Alexandre Roberts's profile was updated https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1777820/ Sat, 09 Apr 2022 15:03:32 +0000 0 fa963f89140ba7c22b25d7ed5ac19ff9 Alexandre Roberts's profile was updated https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1774750/ Tue, 15 Mar 2022 16:57:32 +0000 0 9cf24bd88b4b4b8d245012d3bca1be96 Alexandre Roberts created the event Byzantine Studies Conference in the group Byzantine Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1759732/ Thu, 25 Nov 2021 21:59:08 +0000 Title: Byzantine Studies Conference

Description:

47TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE BYZANTINE STUDIES ASSOCIATION OF NORTH AMERICA

Byzantine Studies Conference

HOSTED AT CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY AND THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART

IN-PERSON AND VIRTUAL

DECEMBER 9-12, 2021

https://artsci.case.edu/bsc/

Date: 9 December…[Read more]

]]> 0 bfb0abb22a8ca7c4ed3b8810eb4c4562 Alexandre Roberts deposited A Greek Alchemical Epigram in Its Middle Byzantine Context https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1755418/ Thu, 14 Oct 2021 16:15:43 +0000 This article examines the dedicatory epigram of the earliest and most important witness to the Greek alchemical corpus, the tenth-century manuscript donated by Cardinal Bessarion to the Republic of Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana MS gr. 299, as a window onto the cultural coordinates of the manuscript's middle Byzantine readers. Scrutiny of…[Read more]

]]> 0 6f0d8113394fb5df84207110fa612934 Alexandre Roberts replied to the topic displaying bibliographical information of deposited publications on profile page in the discussion Feedback and Feature Requests https://hcommons.org/groups/feedback-and-feature-requests-1178560936/forum/topic/displaying-bibliographical-information-of-deposited-publications-on-profile-page/#post-45015 Wed, 12 May 2021 14:59:16 +0000 Great, thank you! It occurs to me that a technically much simpler solution that could be quickly implemented (before eventually implementing some kind of Zotero-style output based on the metadata) would be simply to allow users to fill in an optional field (of formatted text, e.g., to allow for italics) that would be added after the…[Read more]

]]> f30ed45afc8ad05bed688bb8bfb1b802 Alexandre Roberts started the topic displaying bibliographical information of deposited publications on profile page in the discussion Feedback and Feature Requests https://hcommons.org/groups/feedback-and-feature-requests-1178560936/forum/topic/displaying-bibliographical-information-of-deposited-publications-on-profile-page/ Tue, 11 May 2021 13:50:18 +0000 Would it be possible to implement a way to easily display bibliographic information (e.g., journal, vol, year, pages for a journal article) on profiles immediately after each CORE deposit? This could be based on the deposit's metadata by default (following a standard bibliographic style, e.g., Chicago, which could then be changed), with the option…[Read more]

]]> b0de86cc59b1c1ae99e9f2dd2b0311be Alexandre Roberts started the topic flexible embargo period in the discussion Feedback and Feature Requests https://hcommons.org/groups/feedback-and-feature-requests-1178560936/forum/topic/flexible-embargo-period/ Tue, 11 May 2021 07:42:31 +0000 It would be great to have total flexibility in setting the embargo period on articles by selection the exact date of the end of the embargo period when uploading a publication. (This feature is available and intuitively implemented on Zenodo.)

]]> a6dff75e85c19def681f11c8e24bd7a9 Alexandre Roberts deposited Like a Runaway Slave: The Discourse of an Eighth-Century Muslim Ascetic https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1734960/ Wed, 14 Apr 2021 20:12:23 +0000 A study of Malik b. Dinar's comparison of himself to a runaway slave.

]]> 0 a73cb97052efa8978346f8941adb2236 Alexandre Roberts deposited In Mecca's Backyard in the group Islamicate Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1720888/ Mon, 28 Dec 2020 02:24:19 +0000 Review of The Red Sea from Byzantium to the Caliphate: AD 500–1000, by Timothy Power (American University in Cairo, 2012).

]]> 0 6bb3f4b85c495dd930e76e64a91178a8 Alexandre Roberts deposited In Mecca's Backyard in the group Byzantine Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1720887/ Mon, 28 Dec 2020 02:24:13 +0000 Review of The Red Sea from Byzantium to the Caliphate: AD 500–1000, by Timothy Power (American University in Cairo, 2012).

]]> 0 7ffffb3a0b951aa6999e82d36ff781a7 Alexandre Roberts deposited In Mecca's Backyard https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1720860/ Sun, 27 Dec 2020 19:37:24 +0000 Review of The Red Sea from Byzantium to the Caliphate: AD 500–1000, by Timothy Power (American University in Cairo, 2012).

]]> 0 ca13056b3be6d6949cff2a7ea22dbffc Alexandre Roberts deposited The paths and memories tying Antioch to its hinterland https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1720858/ Sun, 27 Dec 2020 19:22:57 +0000 Review of Ancient Antioch from the Seleucid Era to the Islamic Conquest, by Andrea U. De Giorgi (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

]]> 0 024c66c17fcc402b5089a804b4815351 Alexandre Roberts deposited Mathematical Philology in the Treatise on Double False Position in an Arabic Manuscript at Columbia University https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1718029/ Wed, 25 Nov 2020 12:35:12 +0000 This article examines an Arabic mathematical manuscript at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library (or. 45), focusing on a previously unpublished set of texts: the treatise on the mathematical method known as Double False Position, as supplemented by Jābir ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ṣābī (tenth century?), and the commentaries by Aḥmad ib…[Read more]

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