PhD Position: “Spaces of visualisation
Applications are welcomed for a PhD position to become part of the research team of the Emmy Noether group “Spaces of visualisation – topographies of knowledge. Early modern anatomical theatres between art, nature and science” at RUB. The project is led by Jun.-Prof. Christine Beese at the Department of Art History and is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The research project examines the role of anatomical theatres as built spaces in the formation of science as an independent realm and in the implementation of epistemological shifts in the early modern period. As spaces that crossed the borders between art, technology and science, and between sensual experience and rational examination, anatomical theatres are designed to reflect the negotiation and formation of scientific beliefs. As a building type that was established across various nations, they are particularly suitable for analysing the role of architecture in the visualization and implementation of science as a tangible entity with specific patterns of form, action and interpretation. With the aim of creating a transnational and entangled history that questions narratives based on “central“ and “peripheral“ places in science, the project focuses on around twenty well-known and lesser-known anatomical theatres in Europe and Latin America. It emphasizes the local impact of the buildings and examines their material presence as a decisive factor in the formation and implementation of specific images of humanity and society, as well as in a European concept of science as a universal model for explaining and ordering the world.
The candidate will carry out the architectural-historical study of anatomical theaters built in Iberia and Ibero-America between the 16th and the 19th century.