Claremont, Calif. (July 12, 2013) — Pitzer College Assistant Professor of Philosophy Ahmed Alwishah has been awarded a visiting fellowship to the University of Cambridge. He will be writing and conducting research at the renowned English university from January to June 2014.
A specialist in Islamic philosophy, Alwishah will work on a manuscript titled Dialectical Disputation in the Quran that explores how dialectical disputation—a form of philosophical debate—is implicit in the language of the Quran. Since debates constitute much of the Quran, Alwishah will conduct a logical analysis of the text, revealing the underlying structure and rules of those debates. His book will demonstrate how logical analysis is as important as a linguistic approach to truly understanding and interpreting the Quran.
“This fellowship will provide me with invaluable intellectual interaction with scholars at Cambridge and critically improve and sharpen the overall trajectory of my project,” Alwishah said. “In addition, I will have access to the great libraries at Cambridge University, which contain unique manuscripts on Arabic logic.”
Alwishah will teach at Pitzer this fall semester before undertaking his fellowship at Clare Hall College at Cambridge, the third-oldest university in the world.
