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Cecilia Rosengren

Senior Lecturer

Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion
Telephone
+46 766-18 42 96
Mail
cecilia.rosengren@lir.gu.se
Visiting address
Renströmsgatan 6
41255 Göteborg
Room number
C641
Postal address
Box 200
40530 Göteborg

About Cecilia Rosengren

Research

Keywords: Early modern history of ideas and science; female natural philosophers; natural philosophy and climate history; history of the press and publicity; Baroque and Enlightenment; gender and canon.

Ongoing research projects:

  • Freezing Cold. Northern European imaginaries of winter, snow and ice during the Little Ice Age Freezing cold
  • MEH - Making Enlightenment Happen. Gothenburg women in 18th century Swedish public life MEH
  • From shame to fame - rhetorical strategies in the writings of Margaret Cavendish (book project)

Ongoing research network:

  • POW - Philosophy in Other Words (interdisciplinary network for Nordic researchers investigating women's philosophical activity in the early modern period) POW
  • Nordic exceptionalism: Perspectives from the Outside
  • Barockakademien (chair 2018–2023)
  • Early Modern Seminar at the University of Gothenburg TMS

An interest in natural philosophy led me to study early modern women philosophers and how we can understand and value their interventions and strategies for recognition. See for the book in Swedish, Conway – Naturfilosofi och kvinnliga tänkare i barockens tidevarv [Conway – Natural philosophy and women thinkers in the Age of the Baroque] (2009). I have also published articles on Anne Conway, Emelie du Châtelet, and Margaret Cavendish – most recently on Cavendish: "Suppose a man be in a deep contemplative study" Margaret Cavendish, Descartes' Cogito and the Freedom of Thought" (2023) and "Kvinnors politiska tänkande i äldre tider: Exemplet Margaret Cavendish och offentligheten" (2023).

The alternative ways of understanding nature that many women natural philosophers represented are further explored in my ongoing research on nature and climate in the early modern period in northern Europe. See the project Freezing cold (funded by The Swedish Research Council) and the articles "The wilderness of Allaert van Everdingen. Experience and representation of the north in the age of the baroque' (2020); 'Touching the Cold in the Little Ice Age – Reason and Fancy in Robert Boyle's and Margaret Cavendish's Writings on Northern Cold' (2023).

My PhDTidevarvets bättre genius. Föreställningar om offentlighet och publicitet i Karl Johanstidens Sverige (1999) explored the changes of the public sphere in early nineteenth century Sweden and the debate surrounding the newly born modern political press, a theme that I have continued to investigate over the years, for instance the big controversy on publicity in Parliament 1800 in a book on the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act from 1766 and its history, published by the Swedish Riksdag for the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the Act in 2016. Within the framework of the on-going project Making Enlightenment happen (funded by The Swedish Research Council), I study women's intellectual contributions in Enlightenment Gothenburg.

The academic year 2002-2003: visiting scholar at Centre Alexandre Koyré, EHESS in Paris, France. February - June 2015: visiting scholar at Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) in Stellenbosch, South Africa. The autumn term 2018: visiting scholar at the department of History of Ideas and Science, Uppsala University. 2007–2011: member of the editorial board of Lychnos. Annual of the Swedish History of Science Society. Since 2007 member of the steering group of The Early Modern Seminar. 2018–2023: chair of the research network The Swedish Baroque Academy (Barockakademien).

Teaching

Since the time as PhD-student I have been lecturing in the history of ideas and science – teaching introductory to in-depth courses on the history of political ideas and the history of aesthetics, science and philosophy from Antiquity to our times. I supervise both bachelor and doctoral level students. During the autumn term 2011 I was STINT fellow and visiting professor at Williams College, Massachusetts, USA, as part of the STINT (The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education) programme Excellence in Teaching.

Administration

Between 2003 and 2006 I served as director of studies at the department of History of Ideas and Science. In January 2009 I became Deputy Head of The Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion, and Associate Head of Education, a position I upheld until June 2011. January 2012 – June 2012 I functioned as Associate Head of Doctoral Studies. July 2012 - June 2018 I was Head of Department. 2018–2023 chair of the collegium of history of ideas- and science.