Anna Somfai

Rank: 
Visiting Professor

Contact information

Building: 
Budapest, Nador u. 9, Faculty Tower
Room: 
402
Phone: 
+36 1 327-3000 x 2198

My current research project explores the cognitive elements of manuscript page layouts and the implications of the transmission of philosophical concepts in manuscript form, relating these to my central inquiry into visual thinking and diagrammatic reasoning. I have received my PhD at the University of Cambridge in 1998, studying Plato's Timaeus and Calcidius' Commentary along with their early medieval manuscripts. I have then held research positions for nine years at the University of Cambridge, the Warburg Institute (University of London), the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin), and the Collegium Budapest. I have taught courses in medieval science, philosophy, intellectual history, manuscript studies, Latin palaeography, and cognitive science in Cambridge, London, and Budapest. I teach short codicology and palaeography courses at London University's International Palaeography School. My research and teaching broadly concern medieval manuscript studies, reading, writing, and interpretative practices, cognitive philosophy, and ancient, late ancient and medieval philosophy and science. My current courses at CEU include ancient, late ancient and medieval cosmology, autobiography, codicology, and Latin palaeography.

RESEARCH POSITIONS

2006/2007 Research Fellow, Collegium Budapest, Institute for Advanced Study, 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 Research Fellow, The Warburg Institute, University of London.

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

TEACHING

2006 to present: Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest.

2006 to present: School of Advanced Study, University of London.

2009: Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics.

1994-1997: Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.

1992-1994, 2003/2004: Department of Medieval European History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.

Qualification

PhD, University of Cambridge, 1998.
MPhil, University of Cambridge, 1992.
BA, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, 1991.

Projects with involvement of Anna Somfai