Paula Findlen

Ubaldo Pierotti Professor of Italian History
Director, Science, Technology and Society Program
Co-Editor, Configurations

At Stanford Since 1996

Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley
B.A., Wellesley College

• The Rise and Fall of Europe (IHUM)
• Power, Art and Knowledge in Renaissance Italy
• Heretics, Prostitutes and Merchants: The Venetian Empire
• The Emergence of Medicine: The Middle Ages and the Renaissance
• Science, Art and Technology: The Worlds of Leonardo
• When Worlds Collide: The Trial of Galileo
• New Worlds, Imaginary Worlds
• The Scientific Revolution
• The Mind Has No Sex
• Early Modern Europe Research Seminar

BOOKS

• The Women Who Understood Newton: Laura Bassi and Her World (in progress).
• A Fragmentary Past: The Making of Museums and the Making of the Renaissance (Rome: Carrocci Editore, 2003; Italian edition); English edition forthcoming.
• Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
• (with Pamela Smith, ed.), Merchants and Marvels: Commerce,Science and Art in Early Modern Europe (New York: Routledge, 2001).
• (ed.) The Italian Renaissance: Essential Readings(Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).
• (with Michelle Fontaine and Duane Osheim, eds.), Beyond Florence: The Contours of Medieval and Early Modern Italy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003).
• (ed.) Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything (New York: Routledge, 2003).
  

SELECTED ARTICLES

• "Historical Thought in the Renaissance," in Companion to Historical Thought, ed. Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).
• "Ideas in the Mind: Gender and Knowledge in the Seventeenth Century," Hypatia (2002).
• "Science, History, and Erudition: Athanasius Kircher's Museum at the Collegio Romano," in Daniel Stolzenberg, ed., The Great Art of Knowing: The Athanasius Kircher Collection at Stanford University (Rome: Casalini
  Editore, 2001).
• "Building the House of Knowledge: The Structures of Thought in Late Renaissance Europe," in Tore Frangsmyr, ed., The Structure of Knowledge:Classifications of Science and Learning since the Renaissance (Berkeley, 2001).
• "The Modern Muses: Collecting and the Cult of Remembrance in Renaissance Italy," in Museums and Memory, ed. Susan Crane (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).
• "The Janus Faces of Science in the Seventeenth Century: Athanasius Kircher and Isaac Newton," in Rethinking the Scientific Revolution, ed. Margeret Osler (Cambridge, U. K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
• "Mr. Murray's Cabinet of Wonder," preface to reprint of David Murray, Museums, Their History and Their Use (Staten Island, NY: Pober Publishing, 2000).
• (with Tara Nummedal) "Scientific Publishing in the Seventeenth Century," in Scientific Books, Libraries and Readers (London: Scolar Press, 1999).
• "The Formation of a Scientific Community: Natural History in Sixteenth-Century Italy," in Natural Particulars: Renaissance Natural Philosophy and the Disciplines, ed. Anthony Grafton and Nancy Siraisi (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999).
• "A Forgotten Newtonian: Women and Science in the Italian Provinces," in The Sciences in Enlightenment Europe, ed. William
• Clark, Jan Golinski and Simon Schaffer (University of Chicago Press, 1999).
• "Between Carnival and Lent: The Scientific Revolution at the Margins of Culture," Configurations 5 (1998).
• "Possessing the Past: The Material World of the Italian Renaissance," American Historical Review 103 (1998): 83-114.
• "Masculine Prerogatives: Gender, Space and Knowledge in the Early Modern Museum," in The Architecture of Science, ed. by Peter Galison and Emily Thompson. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999.
• "Translating the New Science: Women and the Circulation of Knowledge in Enlightenment Italy," Configurations 2 (1995): 167-206.
• "Science as a Career in Enlightenment Italy: The Strategies of Laura Bassi" Isis 84 (1993): 441-469.
  "Humanism, Politics and Pornography in Renaissance Italy," in Lynn Hunt, ed., The Invention of Pornography (New York: Zone Books, 1993), pp.49-108.
• "Jokes of Nature and Jokes of Knowledge: The Playfulness of Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Europe," Renaissance Quarterly 43 (1990): 292-331.
• "The Museum: Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy," Journal of the History of Collections 1 (1989): 59-78.

• Visiting Professor, Pontificia Universidade Catolica de São Paulo, Brazil, summer 2003
• Visiting Professor, Folger Shakespeare Library, spring 2003
• Professeur Associe, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 2001-02
• Visiting Professor, University of Groningen, 2000
• Visiting Professor, Harvard University, History of Science Dept, 1994
• Guggenheim Fellow, 1998-99
• Co-Recipient, Getty Foundation Grant, 1998-99
• Stanford Humanities Center Fellowship, 1998-99
• Invited Senior Scholar, Getty Center, 1995-96
• Pfizer Prize for best book in History of Science, 1996
• Howard Marraro Prize for best book in Italian History, American Catholic Historical Association, 1995
• Derek Price award for best article, History of Science Society, 1993
• American Council for Learned Societies Fellowship, 1992-93
• American Philosophical Society Grant 1992-93
• Nelson Prize for best article, Renaissance Society of America, 1990
• NEH Younger Scholars Research Grant 1984

• Science, Technology and Society Program, Director, 1999-present
• Director of Graduate Studies, History Department, 1999-2002
• Appointments and Promotions Committee, H&S;, 2001-03
• Steering Committee, Stanford Fellows in the Humanities Program, 2001-03
• Advisory Board, Stanford Early Science Lab, 2001-present
• Overseas Studies Visiting Faculty (Florence Program), 2000
• History Honors College, 2000
• Dean of Admission Search Committee, 1999-2000
• Director of Overseas Studies Search Committee, 1999-2000
• Presidential Chairs in the Humanities Advisory Committee, 1997-98
• Co-Coordinator, Stanford Humanities Center Workshops
• Mediterranean History Workshop, 2002-03
• The History of the Book Workshop, 2000-2001
• Iberian Studies, 1997-98
• Library Committee, 1997-2000
• Program in the History and Philosophy of Science, 1996-present
  

• Co-Editor, Configurations
• Advisory Board, Eighteenth Century Studies, 2000-present
• Editorial Board, Journal of the History of Collections,
• Editorial Board, Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies
• Editorial Board, Isis, 1996-99
• Journal of the History of Biology Bookshelf Board, 1990-98
• American Historical Association (Program Committee 1998, Nominating Committee, 2003-06)
• Society for Italian Historical Studies
• Renaissance Society of America (Council, 1991-93, 2003-05)
• Sixteenth Century Studies Conference (Progam Committee 1996-98)
• History of Science Society (Pfizer Prize Committee 1996-99, Nominating Committee 1998-99, Council 1998-2000)