VivaMente Grantees

VivaMente Grantees

2020

Fabrizio Baldassarri

University of Bucharest

Medicine in the Philosophy of Descartes:

Lights and Shadows

Fabrizio Baldassarri defended a PhD thesis in Descartes’ naturalistic studies in 2013, especially focusing on a Cartesian natural history embedded within his natural philosophy. He has recently been aiming attention at Descartes’ botanical studies as they emerged in Descartes’ correspondence and in his under-studied manuscripts. Additionally, Baldassarri’s thread of research are directed towards (1.) the comprehension of the relationship method-experimentation in Descartes; (2.) the understanding of Descartes’ theory of matter; (3.) the redefinition of Descartes’ sciences of life and of a few aspects of his medicine, physiology and therapeutics. Baldassarri has published on all these subjects, and he is now looking at the relationships Descartes’ had with his scientific studies.

2022

Jil Muller

University of Paderborn

From Automata to Transhumans

Debating Human Nature and its Limitations 1600-2000

Jil Muller is a post-doctoral research fellow. At the Center for Women Philosophers and Scientists she is working on the digital, historical-critical edition of the Paris manuscript of Du Châtelet’s Institutions de physique. She will do a revision of the different stages of the Institutions de physique, work on the Modern-French version and focus on the interferences with Descartes’ works. During her previous research on the idea of original sin in the works of Montaigne and Descartes, she even focused on Elisabeth of Bohemia and especially on her conception of passions and her interest in medical issues. Her great knowledge of medicine and of the functioning of the human body enabled her to play a major role in the correspondence with René Descartes.

2023

Catherine Rider and Sarah Toulalan

University of Exeter

Fertility, Medicine and the Body:

Theory and Practice across the Premodern World

Catherine Rider is an Associate Professor in Medieval History at the University of Exeter. She is interested in the religious and cultural history of Europe in the late Middle Ages. Her research to date has focused predominantly on the history of magic and the church’s attitude to magic, with volumes such as Magic and Religion in Medieval England (2012) and the co-edited volume, with Sophie Page, Routledge History of Medieval Magic (2019). Sarah Toulalan is also an Associate Professor at Exeter and her research area covers topics such as the history of the body, with particular interests in gender, sex, sexuality, ageing, and body size. She is currently finishing writing a book on ‘Children and sex in early modern England: knowledge, consent, abuse c.1550-1750’ generously funded by a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.