ANNA SOMFAI (Mphil, Phd Cantab.)

CURRICULUM VITAE

ANNA SOMFAI (MPhil, PhD Cantab.)

https://people.ceu.edu/anna_somfai

Current position

Since 1 September 2012: Visiting Professor, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest.

Summary list of degrees

1998: PhD, University of Cambridge.

1992: MPhil, University of Cambridge.

1991: BA, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.

Summary list of previous positions

2009 – 2012: Senior Research Fellow, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest.

2007 – 2009: Visiting Professor, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest.

2006 – 2007: Research Fellow, Collegium Budapest, Institute for Advanced Study, Budapest and Visiting Professor, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest.

2005: Invited Visiting Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.

2001 – 2004: Research Assistant, The Warburg Institute, University of London.

1999 – 2001: Frances A. Yates Long-term Research Fellow, The Warburg Institute, University of London.

1998 –1999: Research Associate, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge.

Studies

1994 – 1998: PhD degree (October 1998), University of Cambridge. Title of dissertation: The Transmission and Reception of Plato’s Timaeus and Calcidius’s Commentary during the Carolingian Renaissance.

1991/1992: MPhil degree in Medieval History (October 1992), University of Cambridge. Title of dissertation: The Organic Analogy: A Comparison of its Secular with its Ecclesiastical Use in Twelfth-Century Europe, with Special Reference to John of Salisbury.

1985 – 1991: Diploma in Latin and History (June 1991), Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. Title of dissertation: De nugis curialium et vestigiis philosophorum: The Balance of Historical Reality and Classical Tradition in the Political Theory of John of Salisbury (in Hungarian).

1989/1990: Medieval Studies, interdisciplinary program, University of California, Berkeley.

Research positions

September 2009 – May 2013: Senior Research Fellow, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest. (‘Visual thinking and diagrammatic images in medieval manuscript’ project. The project includes research, teaching at postgraduate level of codicology, palaeography and medieval science, and academic organising work [2013: One-week Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography, 2012: Medieval manuscripts: visual layout and cognitive content in cross-cultural perspective, two-day workshop, 2011: One-week Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography, 2010: Medieval Manuscript Studies Specialisation]).

October 2006 – July 2007: Research Fellow, Collegium Budapest, Institute for Advanced Study, Budapest. (Project: ‘Visual thinking: the nature, role, and transmission of philosophical, scientific, cosmological, and encyclopaedic diagrams and the evidence of medieval manuscripts’.)

January – March 2005: Invited Visiting Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (invited by Prof Lorraine Daston). (Study of scientific images in medieval manuscripts.)

October 2001 – September 2004: Research Assistant, The Warburg Institute, University of London, Project: ‘The British Medieval Manuscripts Containing Commentaries on Aristotle’. (Examining and describing the medieval manuscripts of Latin commentaries on and glosses to Aristotle in the British Library and in the Oxford College libraries; reception of Aristotle in England during the Middle Ages.)

October 1999 – September 2001: Frances A. Yates Long-term Research Fellow, The Warburg Institute, University of London. (Main area of research: Calcidius’s Latin translation of and Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, and their reception from the late tenth to the late eleventh centuries; Plato’s epistemology and ontology. Organising seminars, supervising students.)

October 1998 – September 1999: Research Associate, University of Cambridge, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Assistant Editor of the ‘Electronic Thorndike and Kibre Database Catalogue of Medieval Scientific Manuscripts’. (Examining and describing for the electronic database the approximately 220 pre-1500 Latin scientific and medical manuscripts held in the library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London; medieval science, medieval scientific and medical images.)

1992/1993: Research Fellow of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Department of Medieval European History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.

Teaching

2017/2018: Graduate seminars entitled ‘Medieval Codicology: The Physical and Intellectual Production and Use of Manuscripts (8th-15th c.)’, ‘Latin Palaeography, Book Hand (4th-15th c.)’, and ‘Late Antique and Medieval Science (5th-15th c.)’, at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest.

2017 Summer: ‘Writing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts: Folio Layout in Context’ one-day course at the Summer School in Manuscript Studies at the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, University of London (16 June 2016).

2016/2017: Graduate seminars entitled ‘Medieval Codicology: The Physical and Intellectual Production and Use of Manuscripts (8th-15th c.)’, ‘Latin Palaeography, Book Hand (4th-15th c.)’, and ‘Late Antique and Medieval Science (5th-15th c.)’, at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest.

2016 Summer: ‘Writing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts: Folio Layout in Context’ one-day course at the Summer School in Manuscript Studies at the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, University of London (17 June 2016).

2015/2016: Graduate seminars entitled ‘Medieval Codicology: The Physical and Intellectual Production and Use of Manuscripts (8th-15th c.)’, ‘Latin Palaeography, Book Hand (4th-15th c.)’, and ‘Late Antique and Medieval Science (5th-15th c.)’, at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest.

2015 Summer: ‘Writing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts: Folio Layout in Context’ one-day course at the Summer School in Manuscript Studies at the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, University of London (19 June 2015).

2014/2015: Graduate seminars entitled ‘Medieval Codicology: The Physical and Intellectual Production and Use of Manuscripts (8th-15th c.)’, ‘Latin Palaeography, Book Hand (4th-15th c.)’, and ‘Late Antique and Medieval Science (5th-15th c.)’, at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest. PhD student supervision (Ivana Dobcheva, PhD).

2014 Summer: ‘Writing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts: Folio Layout in Context’ one-day course at the Summer School in Manuscript Studies at the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, University of London (20 June 2014).

2013/2014: Graduate seminars entitled ‘Medieval Codicology: The Physical and Intellectual Production and Use of Manuscripts (8th-15th c.)’, ‘Latin Palaeography, Book Hand (4th-15th c.)’, and ‘Late Antique and Medieval Science (5th-15th c.)’, at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest. PhD student supervision (Ivana Dobcheva, PhD).

2013 Summer: ‘Writing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts: Folio Layout in Context’ one-day course at the Summer School in Manuscript Studies at the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, University of London (19 June 2013).

Director and faculty member of the international Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography, 15-20 July 2013, Central European University, Budapest. Latin palaeography classes, codicology lectures and presentation of manuscripts in manuscript collections.

2012/2013: Graduate seminars entitled ‘Medieval Codicology: The Physical and Intellectual Production and Use of Manuscripts (8th-15th c.)’, ‘Latin Palaeography, Book Hand (4th-15th c.)’, and ‘Late Antique and Medieval Science (5th-15th c.)’, at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest. PhD student supervision (Ivana Dobcheva, PhD).

2012 Summer: ‘Writing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts: Folio Layout in Context’ one-day course at the Summer School in Manuscript Studies at the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, University of London (22 June 2012).

2011/2012: Graduate seminars entitled ‘Medieval Codicology: The Physical and Intellectual Production and Use of Manuscripts (8th-15th c.)’ and ‘Late Antique and Medieval Science and Its Textual and Visual Sources (5th-15th c.)’ at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest. PhD student supervision (Ivana Dobcheva, PhD). Independent study supervisor (Ryan Bailey, MA).

2011 Summer: ‘Reading and Writing Medieval Manuscripts: Folio Layout in Context’ one-day course at the Summer School in Manuscript Studies at the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, University of London (23 June 2011).

Director and faculty member of the international Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography, 18-23 July 2011, Central European University, Budapest. Latin palaeography classes, codicology lectures and presentation of manuscripts in manuscript collections.

2010/2011: Graduate seminars entitled ‘Medieval Codicology: Writing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts (8th-15th c.)’ and ‘Late Antique and Medieval Science: Texts and Images and How to Read Them (5th-15th c.)’ at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest. PhD student supervision.

2009/2010: Graduate seminars entitled ‘Codicology’ and ‘Medieval Science’ at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest. PhD student supervision.

2009: ‘Text and Image in Encyclopaedic, Philosophical and Scientific Manuscripts’ at the Summer School in Manuscript Studies at the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, University of London (26 June 2009).

2008/2009: Visiting professor at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest; graduate seminars entitled ‘Codicology’, ‘Text and Image in Medieval Science’, ‘Medieval Latin Palaeography’. Greek philosophical reading group: Aristotle, De anima.

Invited lecturer at the Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME); undergraduate lecture entitled ‘Introduction to Cognitive Science’.

2007/2008: Visiting professor at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest; graduate seminars entitled ‘Codicology’ and ‘Text and Image in Medieval Science’.

2006/2007: Visiting professor at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest; graduate seminars entitled ‘Codicology’ and ‘Text and Image in Medieval Science’.

2006: ‘Dialogue between Text and Image in Encyclopaedic and Philosophical Manuscripts’ at the Summer School in Manuscript Studies at the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, University of London(27 June 2012).

2005/2006: Visiting professor at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest; graduate seminar entitled ‘Medieval Codicology: Writing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts (8th-15th c.)’.

2003/2004: Visiting professor at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest; two graduate seminars entitled ‘Reading Latin Philosophical Texts’ and ‘Textual Research Method’.

Visiting lecturer at the Department of Medieval European History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest; undergraduate seminar entitled ‘Intellectual currents in ninth- to twelfth-century Western-Europe’.

1996/1997: ‘Central medieval hands, 1000-1350’ graduate palaeography seminar, MPhil course in Medieval History, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.

1996/1997, 1995/1996, 1994/1995: ‘Early medieval scripts and diplomatic’ graduate palaeography seminar, MPhil course in Medieval History, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.

1993/1994: Visiting professor at the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest; graduate seminar entitled ‘Semantic Issues in Medieval Latin’.

Visiting lecturer at the Department of Medieval European History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest; undergraduate seminar entitled ‘Intellectual history of eleventh- and twelfth-century Western-Europe’.

1992/1993: Guest lecturer at the Department of Medieval European History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest; undergraduate seminar entitled ‘The twelfth-century renaissance’.

Research project

‘Visual thinking and diagrammatic images in medieval manuscripts’, supported between 2009-2013 by the NKTH ERC HU grant (European Research Council, Starting Independent Researcher Grant 2007, recommended for funding, ranked 7th on panel SH5, overall 309th). Fields: medieval history and philosophy of science, codicology, cognitive science, cognitive philosophy, philosophy and history of cognitive science, scientific imaging techniques. (Host institution: Central European University, Budapest.)

https://medievalstudies.ceu.edu/projects/visual-thinking-and-diagrammatic-images-medieval-manuscripts-0

Organising activities

2013: Organiser of the Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography 2013, Summer University of the Central European University.

http://www.summer.ceu.hu/codicology-2013

2012: Organiser of the ‘Medieval manuscripts: visual layout and cognitive content in cross-cultural perspective’ two-day international workshop at the Central European University, 30-31 March 2012.

https://www.ceu.edu/event/2012-03-30/medieval-manuscripts-visual-layout-and-cognitive-content-cross-cultural-perspective

2011: Organiser of the ‘Page Layout in Medieval Manuscripts’ one-day workshop, Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography 2011, Central European University.

2011: Organiser of the Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography 2011, Summer University of the Central European University.

http://www.summer.ceu.hu/node/160

2010: Organiser of the Specialisation in Medieval Manuscript Studies, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University.

2000/2001: Organiser of the fortnightly Postgraduate Seminar, The Warburg Institute, University of London.

2000: Co-organiser with Prof. Charles Burnett of the ‘Philosophia: Shifts in the Content and Method Between the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries’ workshop held at The Warburg Institute, University of London.

1992/1993: Organiser and co-ordinator of the new Medieval Studies PhD Programme at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.

Academic functions

2013: Course Director of the Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography 2013, Central European University.

2011: Course Director of the Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography 2011, Central European University.

2010-2016: Head of the Specialisation in Medieval Manuscript Studies, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University.

2007 – 2011: Consultant for the Liber Floridus Project (University of Ghent, Belgium).

2005 – 2006: Consultant for the medieval philosophical and scientific manuscripts on the Cambridge Illuminated Manuscript Project, University of Cambridge.

1993: Secretary of the Association of Hungarian Medievalists.

Service to the academic community

From 2011: Invited peer reviewer for the European Research Council FP7 ‘Ideas’ Specific Program.

Fellowships and Scholarships

2009 – 2013: Senior Research Fellowship, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest.

2006/2007: Fellowship, Collegium Budapest, Institute for Advanced Study, Budapest.

2005 July – September: British Academy Neil Ker Memorial Fund Grant.

2005 January – March: Invited Visiting Scholarship, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.

1999 – 2001: Frances A. Yates Long-term Research Fellowship, The Warburg Institute, University of London.

1998: Short-term Saxl Fellowship, The Warburg Institute, University of London.

1997: Grant of the British Federation of Women Graduates.

1996: Grant of the European Science Foundation.

1995/1996: Jebb Fund Grant.

Le Bas Research Studentship.

1994 – 1996: Scholarship of the Cambridge Overseas Trust to read for the PhD degree.

ORS Award.

Annual bursary of the Royal Historical Society.

1993: Award of the Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiéval.

1992/1993: Research Fellowship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

1991/1992: Scholarship of the Cambridge Overseas Trust to read for the MPhil degree in Medieval History.

Publications in English

Electronic books

Database of the medieval Latin scientific and medical manuscripts of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London (format: electronic database, forthcoming internet publication on the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London, Library webpage).

Articles

‘The Liber Floridus in the Encyclopaedic Tradition: Philosophical and Scientific Diagrams in Context’ in Liber Floridus 1121. The World in a Book, ed. Karen De Coene, Martine De Reu, Philippe De Maeyer, Ghent 2011, pp. 75-89. Two-volume bilingual (English and Dutch) edition.