Brendan Dooley - Biography#

As Professor of Renaissance Studies at University College Cork, I work on the histories of culture and knowledge with reference to Europe and especially to Italy and the Mediterranean world. I have published extensively on topics relating to intellectual life, institutions and patronage structures from 1500-1800. Partly by background, partly by inclination, I am particularly drawn to topics regarding transition, transmission and translation, in the broadest senses. Hence the direction much of my recent research has taken, in the areas of mediality and communication, within and among physical and mental spaces, between past and present. In the area of methodology, at UCC I developed the Digital Arts and Humanities PhD program, currently in its fourth year and funded by a grant of 1.6m euro; and this has spawned new programs at the MA and BA level. Before coming to Cork in 2009, I was on the founding faculty at Jacobs University in Germany (2002-2009), where I contributed to building the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Before that, I worked at Harvard University (1991-2000), Notre Dame University (1985-1987), and at the Medici Archive Project in Florence (2000-2002), a pioneering Digital Humanities nonprofit organization. In 2009 I was appointed as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Italian at the University of Virginia; and I have held fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Fulbright commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the European University Institute and the American Academy in Rome.

My writings have won awards from the Society for Italian Historical Studies and the History of Education Society, and my book Morandi’s Last Prophecy was featured on Italian television (Interview on Stargate: linea di confine, TV La7 08.06.2003). Current international involvements include editorship, with Immacolata Amodeo, of the series Intercultural Studies at Wissenschaftsverlag Trier; membership of the Social Sciences and Humanities working group in the European Strategic Forum for Research Infrastructures; Board Membership of the Irish Humanities Alliance.