Writing Science

Medical and Mathematical Authorship in Ancient Greece

Scientific and technological texts have not played a significant role in modern literary criticism. This collection, focusing mostly on medical and mathematical texts from ancient Greece, aims at approaching ancient Greek science from the cross-disciplinary perspective of authorship. Among the questions addressed are: How does scientific writing differ from ‘literary’ writing? In what ways does the author present himself as an authoritative figure? In addition to offering a new approach to this vast area of ancient literature, this collection reflects on the forms of scientific and scholarly communication current today.

Indeed, it is certainly a familiar enough ploy from satirical genres for writers to
offer ironic disclaimers about questionable rhetorical strategies they may adopt,
and then turn them against their targets, and there is plenty in Galen that one can
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