Biography

Renée Raphael entered the field of history of science after studying physics as an undergraduate and working as an English teacher and computer programmer in Ecuador. She has served as a post-doctoral associate in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and as an assistant professor at the University of Alabama. Upon completion of her fellowship year at I Tatti, Renée will join the history department at UC Irvine. Her scholarship focuses on early modern mechanics and astronomy, science and visual culture, and the history of the book.

Project Summary

Renée’s project applies the methods of book history to Galileo’s final published work, his 1638 Discorsi. She examines period readers’ evaluations of the New Science and traditional approaches through a study of the reception of the text in university teaching, as well as of the scholarly methods of Galileo and his readers.