Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Historical Study of Medical, Scientific, and Cultural Perspectives on Vision

This doctoral dissertation research project is a study of vision that traces the development of ophthalmology in early modern Europe. The research will use archival sources and historical analysis to investigate the ways in which the eye was studied, eye diseases were treated, and the knowledge of the eye was transmitted during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe. Knowledge of the eye not only formed a critical branch of medical and technological investigation, it was also of cultural and scientific significance. The project will capture a distinctive moment in European history, when the emergence of the strong interest in the anatomy, physiology and pathology of the eye corresponded to an intensified reflection on vision as the foundation of knowledge. The results of this project will be communicated through publications and pedagogical initiatives. The research products will be published as scholarly articles and as part of a dissertation; the researcher also has plans to write a book in an accessible style for both academic and general audiences alike. The results of this study will also be used to develop undergraduate curriculum and incorporated into learning activities for high school students that will bridge gaps between the sciences and the humanities.

The overarching goal of this research project us to reveal interconnections between medical, scientific and artistic practices in early modern Europe. The researcher will examine a variety of sources, including texts, images and material artifacts, such as illustrations representing surgical tools and procedures, anatomical models, and optical instruments. By bringing these materials together, the project will chart a variety of 'ways of knowing,' from theoretical construction to practical making and doing, in the development of early modern science and medicine. The results of this project will bring to light perspectives that have been long overlooked in traditional scholarship, and it will challenge the existing historiography of vision. It will build on while departing from scholarship in history of medicine by offering fresh insights in visual and material culture of science and medicine. By locating and connecting a diverse group of people, such as artisans and barber surgeons in addition to princely rulers and natural philosophers, the project will expand our knowledge of the variety of practitioners of early modern science across social classes and professions. It will broaden our perspective on how knowledge was produced, communicated and circulated; and it will contribute to a deeper understanding of the wider culture of seeing and knowing in early modern Europe.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.