Giulia RISPOLI

I am an Assistant Professor in History of Science at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca' Foscari, and a Visiting Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin (MPIWG).

I specialize in the history and epistemology of the modern natural sciences especially in Russia, Europe and North America. I worked and published on a variety of topics such as the history of systems theories—in particular, Alexander Bogdanov’s Tektology as an alternative to the general systems theory and cybernetics—the social study of science in the Soviet context, history of evolutionism, biosphere theories in Russia, Europe and American history, Earth System Science, environmental diplomacy during the Cold War, Anthropocene history and markers. Recent research interests include geoanthropology, the study of forgotten sources of environmental thinking, the Nuclear Winter, and the relationship between art, science, and culture.

I am currently working on two interrelated projects. One, funded by the Rita Levi Montalcini Programme, is titled "Planetary Genealogies, Historicizing the Anthropocene". It contributes to the study and evaluation of the historical, epistemological and scientific foundations of the Anthropocene, a term that indicates a new geological epoch characterized by the global impact of human activities on the planet. In particular, I study and reconstruct the genealogies of two notions - the "biosphere-geosphere" developed in Russia and Eastern Europe, and the "Earth system" of Western ascendance - and how they help reveal different ways in which our planet was conceived and represented in the 20th century in relation to human influence, becoming an object of global politics. The second project, funded by the SPIN program, is titled "NuclearAnthropocene" and examines the context in which the collaboration on Earth system science and modelling for the nuclear winter took place at the height of the Cold War, and how it ignited the discussion – in different realms of science, knowledge and culture – on the evolution of the whole Earth toward a new geological stage. 

Over the past three years, I have co-designed and co-organized the interdisciplinary project and online multimedia publication "Anthropogenic Markers: Stratigraphy and Contexts", which emerges from a collaboration between the MPIWG, The House of the World Cultures (HKW), and the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) to study the diverse systemic historical trends and processes that are manifested in the global distribution of sedimentary and geochemical markers used by the AWG to define the Anthropocene's "golden spike".

Before joining Ca' Foscari, I was a Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. Morevoer, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle and at the Centre Alexander Koyré in Paris, and I taught at Indiana University, Bloomington, at the Cohn Institute of Tel Aviv University, and at the Osteuropa-Institute at the Freie Universität Berlin.

Employment history:

Currently: Assistant Professor (RTDb), Ca' Foscari University of Venice 

May 2021 — May 2029: Academic qualification to Associate Professor (Abilitazione scientifica Nazionale a professore di II fascia)

March 2022 — Dec 2026: Visiting Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin

Jan 2020 – Febraury 2022: Research Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin

Sep 2016 — Dec 2019: Postdoctoral fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin

Jan 2015 — Sep 2016: Chercheure Invitè (postdoc), Centre Alexander Koyré – EHESS –and Muséum Nationale d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Paris

Education:

Apr 2015: PhD in History and Philosophy of Science, earned with highest honors, University of Rome La Sapienza Program in Logic, Philosophy and History of Science

Oct 2011: Master’s degree in Philosophy of Knowledge, science, politics and communication (summa cum laude), University of Rome La Sapienza.

Jun 2011 — Sep 2011: M.A. Dissertation fellowship, Lomonosov Moscow State University (Faculty of Philosophy) Funded by MIUR, Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research

Sep 2010 — Dec 2010 M.A. Dissertation fellowship, Lomonosov Moscow State University (Faculty of Arts) Funded by MIUR, Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research

Grants and Fellowships:

May – June 2022: Visiting scholar, Columbia University, New York (The Harriman Institute).

2022: Research grant, Center for the History of Physics, The American Institute of Physics

Dec 2019 — Dec 2025: Research scholar (emplyment contract), The New University of Lisbon Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da

Tecnologia (Declined)

Oct 2018 — Dec 2018: Visiting lecturer, Indiana University, Bloomington (US) Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences & Department of History, and Philosophy of Science and Medicine

Dec 2017 — Jan 2018: Visiting lecturer, Tel Aviv University, The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas

Jul 2017: Associate fellow, University of Manchester, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine

2016 — 2018: "Cultore della materia", University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Philosophy

2014: Visiting associate, The University of York (UK), Centre for Complex Systems Analysis

2015: Early career Research grant, University of Rome La Sapienza

2014: Conference grant, Aalto University, Helsinki

2013: Early career Research grant, University of Rome La Sapienza

Sep 2012 — Mar 2013: EMA 2 MULTIC fellowship, The National University of Science and Technology «MISiS», Moscow, Funded by TU Dresden

2012 — 2014: PhD scholarship, University of Rome La Sapienza

Academic Activities:

Oct 2021: Co-organizer: Systems Thinking for Water Politics. Anthropocene Campus Venice, 2021, Water Politics in the Age of the Anthropocene

2019: Co-organizer of the Max Planck Institute Seminar Series: Science, Technology and Diplomacy during the Cold War and Beyond

2017 — 2019: Member of the Editorial Team of Azimuth, International Journal of Philosophy. ISSN: 2282-4863

2016: Co-organizer of the Max Planck Institute Seminar Series: Science Fiction for Historians of Science

2017– Member of the editorial team of the International Journal Lo sguardo. Rivista di Filosofia. ISSN: 2036-6558.

Academic memberships:

2020-2022: Elected member for the scientific board of the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS)

2017 – Member of the DHST Commission: Science, Technology and Diplomacy

2016 — Present Member of SISS, Società Italiana di Storia della Scienza, The University of Bologna

Media Coverage:

2018 — 2019: 

“The Soviet scientist who disappeared in 1980s Madrid”, El Pais, 17 January, 2019:
https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/01/14/inenglish/1547469011_790445.html

“Vladimir Aleksandrov’s inconvenient climate predictions”, Il Manifesto, 31 January, 2019:
https://global.ilmanifesto.it/vladimir-aleksandrovs-inconvenient-climate-predictions/

 The Social and Economic Roots of Science in the Age of the Technosphere, Palazzo delle Esposizioni,
Roma (in the framework of the exhibition: HUMAN+, Il futuro della nostra specie).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4L_rln8-kQ

Anthropocene lectures, Conversation between McKenzie Wark and Giulia Rispoli, HKW, Berlin:
https://www.hkw.de/en/app/mediathek/audio/57072

2020:

 Lesson #4: McKenzie Wark and Giulia Rispoli, edited by Hinda Weiss and Anton Vidokle, The Institute of the Cosmos
https://www.cosmos.art/school/lesson-4/445640371

Fantascienza e Futuri non scritti. Diretta Streaming con Giulia Rispoli, Festivalletteratura, Mantova Sep. 11, Scienceground 2020. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QON2Sss9q6Q

2021: Anthropocene Research and System Thinking for the Hydrosphere, the Anthropocene Campus Venice (October 11-16, 2021, www.acv2021.org)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTvajU7Ax4k