Edgar Omar RODRIGUEZ CAMARENA

I am an historian and philosopher of science interested in the study of the particularities of knowledge and practices in multicultural societies and their implications for their environments, mainly in the Mexican case together with a comparative approach. My research interests include the transition from medieval to modern thought, recovering the role of Renaissance humanism, especially in the case of cosmological conceptions. More specifically, I am interested in the introduction of European notions about the skies in New Spain and how they were modified over time. Likewise, I recover the complex interrelationships between natural, religious and political notions not only in the conceptualization of the skies of the New World but also about these very lands and their inhabitants. In addition, I also have studied the history of civil engineering and the construction sector in Mexico. Currently, my research focuses on the study of the particularities of knowledge production in multicultural societies of the early Americas and their material implications. More specifically, I am studying  the case of the transformation of the Valley of Mexico under Hispanic rule and throughout modernity as one of the first instances of the Anthropocene.

Currently, I am a posdoctoral fellowhips in Ca’ Foscari University with the project "Hydro-geo-social Altepetl. The Dispute for the Environment in the Valley of Mexico", which is part of the FARE Project “EarlyGeoPraxis” – Positioned Cosmology in Early Modernity: The Geo-Praxis of Water-and-Land Management in Venice.

I also collaborate with the THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities (NICHE) of Ca’ Foscari University as well as the "The Water City. The Political Epistemology of Hydrogeological Praxis” in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. Likewise, I am member of the international and interdisciplinary research group “Images of the American Skies” coordinated by Nydia Pineda of the University of California, San Diego and also of the project: “Criticism of epistemocracy, cognitive pluralism, epistemic equity and democracy”, coordinated by Ambrosio Velasco at UNAM, Mexico.