My name is Tejas (pronounced Tay-Jus) and I am an Assistant Professor of Classics and Humanities at the University of New Hampshire - Durham.

I recently completed my Ph.D. in Classics with a double emphasis in Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Classical Literature and Theory at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

My work is multi-disciplinary by nature since it explores intersections and interactions in the scientific, cultural, and literary traditions of the ancient Mediterranean and India. Classics gave me my start in studying the ancient world, but I soon found that learning Sanskrit was foundational to exploring ancient India’s intellectual history. Like Greek and Latin in Europe, Sanskrit was the lingua franca of South Asia’s intelligentsia. Thus, my time in graduate school has been spent in between the Classics and Religious Studies departments and each discipline has fundamentally shaped my hermeneutic approach to the ancient world’s intellectual traditions.

My dissertation titled “Astrological melothesia in ancient Rome and India: intercultural conversations in religion, medicine, and technical science” investigated the globalization of scientific discourse in antiquity focusing on India, Rome, and Greece in an effort to challenge the Orientalist narrative that rational scientific thought originated in ancient Europe and made its way to the mystical East.

In particular I investigate the development and use of melothesia, which is the arrangement (thesis) of the 12 Babylonian zodiac signs on parts (melos) of the human body). I study the first two instances of this theory in Manilius’ Astronomica (~20-40 CE) and Sphujidhvaja’s Yavana Jātaka trans. “Greek Horoscopy” (2nd-4th cent. CE). My project explores melothesia and cosmic-corporeal connectivity through religious metaphysics, the language of bonds (foedera and bandhus), and medicine (Hippocratic, Galenic. and Ayurvedic.) I then examine astral sciences as téchnē, ars, and śāstra, technical sciences which can be systematically studied and taught. While ancient Indians, Greeks, and Romans had tracked time through the stars, seasonal changes, and calendrics, astrology made this “public” sense of time intensely “personal” since horoscopes laid out the planetary and zodiacal positions that produced a specific person’s psycho-biological makeup. While a birthday celebration and various coming-of-age ceremonies were part of daily life, Astrology made an individual’s body a locus of temporality. These “embodied temporalities” both occupied physical space and traveled through the spaces around them, interacting with and affecting the objects and beings in each place.

I demonstrate that inter-cultural conversations were critical in shaping science in both Europe and Asia and that their effects, such as astrological medicine (iatromathematics) were influential right through the 19th century in Europe, and remain so in much of Asia. While Edward Said’s research discusses Orientalism’s effects on understanding the Middle Eastern, Arabic, and Islamic world, my work looks more closely at South Asia, India and the Sanskritic traditions. By placing Sanskrit and Classics in conversation, my research attempts to decolonize the history of science.

As Classics redefines itself for the 21st century university, it is critical for those of us in the field to reach beyond its disciplinary boundaries. Looking for ways in which Classics can inform our understanding of other fields through collaboration with them is integral to this process. Though funding for the humanities is generally being cut in favor of STEM research and teaching, humanists remain crucial in guiding both the public’s understanding of science and the narratives developed around it. Most importantly, the Humanities inform discussions about the ethics of science. By looking at ancient and modern science as global practices which involved multiple civilizations and cultures in contributing to them, we can re-build bridges between scientists and humanists. C.P Snow’s lamentation of the divide between the Two Cultures of Arts and Science need not be prophecy.

Before coming to UCSB, I earned degrees in Latin (B.A.) and Neuroscience (B.S.) from the College of William and Mary in Virginia. My four years of undergraduate research lab work in developmental biology combined with with my interest in Classics led me to studying ancient science.

Feel free to contact me by email or phone (listed below) and I look forward to hearing from you!

Interview

You can hear me talk about my dissertation work here as part of the NYU Ancient Studies’ Emerging Scholars Series: https://as.nyu.edu/ancientstudies/center-videos/emerging-scholars-videos.html

My other interests include:

  • Ancient exchange of scientific theories in astrology, medicine, and religion (India and Mediterranean)

  • Metaphysics of resemblance in sacrificial ritual and astral science

  • Schmitt’s “State of Exception”: Democracy, tyranny, and development of ancient science

  • Ethnicity, race, class, and caste in the Mediterranean and India

  • Translation theory in the exact sciences (Sanskrit, Greek, Latin)

  • Consciousness and cognition in ancient Mediterranean and India

  • The Literary Turn: cognitive theories of writing and consciousness

  • Global Philology as framework for analyzing ancient intercultural exchange

  • History of Philology: Sanskrit’s role in shaping Classical Studies

  • Comparative analysis of Roman and Indic religious ritual and legal systems

Read more about some of these by clicking “Research” in the menu.

Contact

tejas.aralere@unh.edu

(703) 859-4341