Audrey BOROWSKI

EDUCATION/ACADEMIC CAREER

 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, January 2022-October 2022

Research Associate, St Benet’s College, University of Oxford, October 2021-

D.Phil. (PhD) in History (History of Ideas), University of Oxford, October 2016–2021                                                                                   

Thesis: ‘Gottfried Leibniz in his World: The Making of a Savant (1672–1679)’

Supervisors: Professor Laurence Brockliss, Dr John Davis

MA in Intellectual History and History of Political Thought (distinction), University College London/Queen Mary, University of London, 2014

Master of Studies in Oriental Studies (Islamic Philosophy and Political Thought) (distinction), University of Oxford, 2010

FELLOWSHIPS

Visiting Scholar, EHESS, Paris, June-August 2021

Visiting Scholar, Early Modern Cosmology Group, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice, December 2020–February 2021 and April–May 2021

Research Fellowship, Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für die Erforschung der Europäischen Aufklärung, Universität Halle, September–November 2020

Guest Scholar, École Normale Supérieure (ENS Ulm), Paris, March 2020

Guest Scholar, Leibniz-Zentrum fur Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin December 2019–January 2020

Predoctoral Fellowship, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Department I), Berlin, August-September 2019

Visiting Fellowship, Lichtenberg-Kolleg (Göttingen Institute for Advanced Study), Universität Göttingen,         June–July 2019

Predoctoral Fellowship, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Department II), Berlin, December 2018–January 2019

Doctoral Fellowship, Leibniz-Archiv, Universität Hannover, July–August 2018

Bucharest-Princeton Summer Programme in Early Modern Philosophy, Bran, Romania, July 2018

Leibniz Summer School and Doctoral Summer School, Max Planck Institute for the History of Mathematics, Leipzig, July 2016

PUBLICATIONS

 A Philosophical History of Computing and AI (Princeton University Press) in preparation

Co-editor (with Nicholas Halmi), ‘Universal Histories’, Intellectual History Review, special issue [collection of essays; contributors include Elisabeth Décultot, Daniel Fulda, Maike Oergel, Maurice Olender, Olivier Pot, Ann Thomson, and Sylvana Tomaselli] (forthcoming early 2022)

‘Constantin Volney on Universal Histories’, in ‘Universal Histories’ issue of Intellectual History Review

Editor, Leibniz’s Reception and Legacy in European Thought [collection of essays with an introduction by the editor assessing Leibniz’s impact on European modern thought from the 18th to late-20th centuries; contributors include Paul Redding, Frederick Beiser, Daniel Dahlstrom, Tzuchien Tho, Anne Pollock, Christopher Johnson, and Peter Fenves] (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, forthcoming late 2021)

‘Leibniz and Hans Blumenberg’, in Leibniz’s Reception and Legacy in European Thought

‘Hans Blumenberg: History, Metaphors and Fables’, Times Literary Supplement (forthcoming November 2021)

‘Hans Blumenberg as Prophet of the Modern Day’, submitted to Aeon (spring 2021)

‘Leibniz as a Projector amongst Projectors: Between Social and Epistemological Fluidity’, British Journal for the History of Science (submitted Spring 2021)‘Using Loaded Language, German and its Place in European Jewish Culture’, Times Literary Supplement (9 July 2021) <https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/german-as-a-jewish-problem-marc-volovici-review-audrey-borowski/>

‘Golden handmaidens, How AI narratives have prompted critical reflection on human-machine relations’, Times Literary Supplement (6 March 2021) < https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/ai-narratives-stephen-cave-kanta-dihal-sarah-dillon-review-audrey-borowski/>

‘Vanishing act, How snobbery and fashion put paid to magic’, Times Literary Supplement (12 February 2021) <https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/decline-of-magic-michael-hunter-book-review/>

‘Friedrich Meinecke or the Defeat of Cultural Historicism’, in Hermann Paul and Adriaan van Veldhuizen (eds.), Historicism as a Travelling Concept (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), pp. 165–85

Articles in Charles Wolfe and Dana Jalobeanu (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Science and Philosophy (Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, online edition June 2020, print edition January 2021):·        ‘History of the Earth’·        ‘Projectors’·        ‘Claude Perrault’·        ‘Republic of Letters’‘The Long Struggle: How Jews Achieved Equality’, Times Literary Supplement (19 June 2020) <https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/jewish-emancipation-david-sorkin-review-audrey-borowski/>‘Sentencing the Present: Critical Conversations in a Time of Crisis’, Public Seminar (28 May 2020) <https://publicseminar.org/essays/sentencing-the-present-part-four/>‘The Eternal Foreigner: Jewish Life and European Thought in the Eighteenth Century’, Times Literary Supplement (6 March 2020) <https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/autobiographhy-of-solomon-maimon-melamed-sucher-review-audrey-borowski/>

‘Cousin de Grainville or the Impossibility of Thought’, Blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas (January 2019) <jhiblog.org/2019/01/07/cousin-de-grainvilles-the-last-man-or-the-impossibility-of-thought/>

‘Louis-Sebastien Mercier Revisited’, Blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas (August 2018) <jhiblog.org/2018/08/01/louis-sebastien-mercier-between-prophetic-and-historical-engagement-with-time>

‘Ibn Khaldun’, in Marco Sgarbi (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, online edition June 2018, print edition August 2020)‘The Challenge of Contingency and Leibniz’s Cybernetic Thinking’, Blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas (February 2018) <jhiblog.org/2018/02/05/the-challenge-of-contingency-and-leibnizs-cybernetic-thinking/>

‘Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt: Brothers of Continuity’, Blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas (December 2017) <jhiblog.org/2017/12/04/alexander-and-wilhelm-von-humboldt-brothers-of-continuity/>

‘Sacrifice Revisited’, Marginalia: LA Review of Books Online (24 November 2017) <marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/sacrifice-revisited/>‘Leibnizian Musings on Intellectual Automation’, Marginalia: LA Review of Books Online (28 March 2017) <marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/the-cure-for-computation/>

Review-essay on ‘Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932’ at the Royal Academy of Arts, Blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas (March 2017) <jhiblog.org/2017/03/06/russian-art-1917-1932-at-the-royal-academy-london>

‘Leibniz and Deleuze on Paradox’, Blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas (September 2016) <jhiblog.org/2016/09/26/leibniz-and-deleuze-on-paradox>

‘Leibniz and the Infinite Mechanism of Life’, Philosophy Now (March 2016) <philosophynow.org/issues/108/Herder_Humboldt_Heidegger_Language_As_World-Disclosure>‘Herder, Humboldt, Heidegger: Language as World-disclosure’, Philosophy Now (July 2015) <philosophynow.org/issues/108/Herder_Humboldt_Heidegger_Language_As_World-Disclosure>‘Leibniz: Before and after Pangloss’, Voltaire Foundation blog, December 2016 (co-authored with Philip Beeley)‘Al Razi, Islamic Heretic’, On Religion (September 2016)‘Diversitas identitate compensata: Leibniz’s Art of Harmonic Variation’, in Wenchao Li (ed.), ‘Für unser Glück oder das Gluck anderer’: Vorträge des X. Internationalen Leibniz-Kongresses, vol. IV (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2016), pp. 453–64

‘Al Qaeda and ISIS : From Revolution to Apocalypse’, Philosophy Now (December 2015) <philosophynow.org/issues/111/Al_Qaeda_and_ISIS_From_Revolution_to_Apocalypse>

‘The Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Grammar’, Babel: The Language Magazine (February 2014)

‘Spinoza’s Political Theology’, On Religion (January 2014)

‘Leibniz’s Philosophy of Language’, Babel: The Language Magazine (November 2013)

BOOK REVIEWS

16 book reviews from 2015 to 2018 in Cambridge Review of Humanities; LSE Review of Books; Global Intellectual History; Intellectual History Review; Marginalia: LA Review of Books Online; Modern Intellectual History; Modern Language Review; Philosophical Readings; and Politics, Religion and Ideology

TRANSLATION

Ritchie Robertson, ‘Wieland: le “Voltaire allemand”’, forthcoming in Revue Voltaire (translation from English)

ACTIVITIES AT OXFORD

 Convenor, Crisis (online workshop), in preparation for autumn 2021Convenor and Participant, Philosophy and Critical Theory of AI (online symposium), Oxford/Cambridge/Digital Lab Theory, New York University, 15-18 June 2021Convenor, Hans Blumenberg Seminar (seminar series on Zoom), October–December 2020Co-convenor (with Prof. Nicholas Halmi), Universal Histories Research Seminar series, Queen’s College, Oxford (sponsored by the John Fell Fund, Oxford European History Centre, Oxford English Faculty, Queen’s College, and University College), January–March 2020Organizer, Louis-Sebastien Mercier: A Polymath in the 18th Century (conference), Maison Française d’Oxford, 1 May 2018Convenor, The Early Modern Mind (seminar series), Oxford European History Centre/Queen’s College, spring 2018Founder and lead convener of the Crisis, Extremes, and Apocalypse Research Network, The Oxford Humanities Research Centre (TORCH), September 2016–June 2017:·        Seminar series (chair and organizer, 30+ events), November 2016–June 2017·        ‘Rethinking Crisis’ (early-career conference), University of Oxford, 13–14 June 2017 (keynote speaker: Professor Simon Glendinning)·        ‘Political Theology and the Crisis of meaning’ (conference), 6 June 2017·        ‘The Resurgence of Apocalyptic sentiment’, joint TORCH/London School of Economics debate, LSE, 30 May 2017·        ‘Sacrifice Revisited’ (conference), History Faculty, University of Oxford, 19 May 2017·        ‘Rousseau, Freedom and the French Revolution’ (workshop), 2 March 2017·        ‘Critical technologies’ (workshop), Oxford Martin School, 25 November 2016

GUEST LECTURES / INVITED TALKS (selection)

  • Title TBC, Workshop on AI and the ‘Social Brain’, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice, early March 2022
  • ‘Hegel, Schrödinger and AI’, Life, Philosophy, Theology: A Symposium on the Biologization of Thought, Campion Hall, Oxford, 29 November 2021
  • Invited commentator, ‘Plato and the Mythic Tradition in Political Thought’, Oxford Political Thought Seminar, 11 November 2021
  • ‘Gilles Deleuze on AI and Computing’, Philosophy and Critical Theory of AI, Oxford/Cambridge/NYU Digital Theory Lab Symposium, 18 June 2021
  • Invited discussant, ‘Artisanal Enlightenment: Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France by Paola Bertucci’, TORHC Writing Technologies Network, University of Oxford, 20 May 2021
  • ‘Systems Thinking since Leibniz’, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice, winter 2021
  • ‘Leibniz, the Republic of Letters and the Querelle,’ Early Modern Intellectual History Seminar, All Souls College, Oxford, 9 March 2021
  • ‘Leibniz and the World of Projectors’, Graduate History Seminar, 1680–1850, University of Oxford, 1 December 2020
  • ‘Leibniz as Projector’, Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für die Erforschung der Europäischen Aufklärung (IZEA), Universität Halle, 24 November 2020
  • ‘Gottfried Leibniz and Johann Joachim Becher’, IZEA, Universität Halle Halle, 17 November 2020
  • ‘Constantin Volney on Universal History’, Romanticism Research Seminar, Oxford English Faculty, 10 November 2020 (online)
  • Invited discussant, ‘Hidden Labour’, Mellon Sawyer Seminar on Histories of AI: A Genealogy of Power,  University of Cambridge, 17 June 2020 (online)
  • ‘Leibniz and Hans Blumenberg’, Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin, 14 January 2020
  • ‘Gottfried Leibniz’s Networks in Germany: Knowledge at the Confluence of Practice and Sociability’, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Department I, Berlin, 25 September 2019
  • ‘A Mirror to Himself: Gottfried Leibniz in his Relationship to Joachim Johann Becher’, Enlightenment reading group, Lichtenberg-Kolleg (Göttingen Institute for Advanced Study), Universität Göttingen, 3 July 2019
  • Scientist, Projector and Courtier: Gottfried Leibniz’s Poetic of Ambiguity as an Instrument of Advancement’, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Department II, Berlin, 21 December 2018
  • ‘Is Life Blind? Purpose and the Ends of Life: The case of Leibniz,’ TORCH Life Itself in Theory and Practice, Trinity College, Oxford, 8 November 2018
  • ‘The Mind between Machine and Organism’, The Early Modern Mind Seminar, Centre for European History, University of Oxford, May 2018
  • ‘Leibniz and Deleuze on the concepts of Expression and Paradox’, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, 27 June 2017
  • ‘Friedrich Meinecke and Benedetto Croce : Remaking History meaningful’, Cambridge Seminar in Intellectual History and Political Thought, History Faculty, University of Cambridge, 8 November 2016
  • ‘The Concept of ‘Man as Machine’: Contrasting deployments of mechanistic metaphors in Early and Late Enlightenment France and Germany’, Long Eighteenth-Century Studies Seminar, University of Oxford, 18 February 2016

CONFERENCE and SEMINAR PAPERS

31 conference or seminar papers from February 2015 to February 2020, at Amsterdam (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), Berlin (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science), Budapest (Central European University), Cambridge (History Faculty and Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities), Craicova (Romania), Göttingen (Lichtenberg-Kolleg), Hanover, London (Birkbeck, University of London), Oxford (multiple colleges and departments), Paris (École Normale Supérieure), St Andrews, and Swansea

AWARDS and GRANTS 

  • Lisa Jardine Award, The Royal Society, 2021
  • Research award, British Society for the History of Philosophy, 2021
  • Wyndham Deedes Scholarship, Wyndham Deedes Memorial Trust, 2020
  • Research award, DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), 2020
  • Research Fellowship in Enlightenment Studies, IZEA, Universität Halle, 2020
  • Research award, Society for the Study of French History, 2020
  • Conference grant, Society for the Study of French History, 2020
  • Research award, Luca Bassi scholarship, 2019
  • Research award, The Royal Historical Society, 2019
  • John Fell Fund award, 2019
  • Clark Fund, History Faculty, University of Oxford, 2019
  • Research award, British Society for the History of Science, 2019
  • Research award, Association for German Studies, 2019
  • Research award, Institut Franco-Allemand de sciences historiques et sociales, 2019
  • Research award, German Historical Society, 2019
  • Bursary, International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2019
  • Clark Fund, History Faculty, University of Oxford, 2018
  • Henry Fund, The Queen’s College, Oxford, 2018
  • Research award, DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), 2018
  • Postgraduate awards, Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust, 2017–18 and 2018–19
  • Studentship, The Queen’s College, Oxford, 2019–2016
  • TORCH Research Network Grant, University of Oxford, 2016–17
  • Israel Scholar grant (full fees and maintenance), 2008–9
  • BSHS Butler Eyles travel grant, 2015
  • Leibniz Summer School programme scholarship, Hanover, 2016
  • CELBAS scholarship (full fees) for M.Phil. in Russian Studies, University of Oxford, 2009 (declined)
  • Scholarship for academic excellence, French Ministry for Higher Education and Research, 2005–8

WORKING GROUPS

  • Research associate, Centre Marc Bloch, Humboldt University, Berlin, April 2021–
  • Research associate, Early Modern Cosmology Group, Università Ca’ Foscari, December 2020–
  • Political Epistemology/Systems Thinking Group, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice, December 2020–
  • ‘Early modern politics of abstraction’, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice, October 2021–
  • Member, Histories of AI: A Genealogy of Power, University of Cambridge, April 2020–

TEACHING 

Oxford Department of Continuing Education, University of Oxford, 2020–:

  • ‘Philosophy of the Enlightenment’
  • ‘Theories of Catastrophe from the Early Modern Period to Today’
  • ‘Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence’

Philosophy Faculty, University of Oxford, 2020–:

  • Tutor in ‘Philosophy of Berkeley’
  • Tutor in ‘Philosophy and Early Modern Philosophy’
  • Tutor in ‘Philosophy of Cosmology’

Exeter College, Oxford, 2020: outreach programme on ‘What is Philosophy?’

St Catherine’s College, 2020: seminar leader, course on Michel Foucault (also composed the syllabus)

The Queen’s College, Oxford, 2020: tutor in ‘European and World History, Enlightenments and Revolutions 1688–1848’

Wadham College, Oxford, 2020: tutor in ‘Non-Western Political Thought’ (also composed the syllabus)

Hertford College, Oxford, 2020: tutor in ‘Social Science and Political Thought’ (also composed the syllabus)

Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Oxford, 2020:

  • Tutor in the Philosophy of History, ‘From Giambattista Vico to Francis Fukuyama’ (also composed the syllabus)
  • Tutor in medieval philosophy (also composed the syllabus)

Department of Politics, University of Oxford, 2019–:

  • Tutor in ‘Political Thought: From Bentham to Weber’
  • Tutor in ‘Political Thought: From Plato to Rousseau’

Hertford College, Oxford, 2019: tutor in ‘Eighteenth-century Political Thought’

History Faculty, University of Oxford, 2019: tutor in History of Science, ‘The Scientific Movement’

Supervisor and tutor, tutorial programme at Middlebury College and Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Oxford, 2017:

  • ‘Early Modern, Islamic and Enlightenment Thought’
  • ‘Philosophy and Political Thought’ (including classes on the Islamic philosophers Al Ghazali, Al Razi, Al Farabi, Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Bajjah, Ibn Tufayl; Spinoza, Machiavelli, Leibniz, Hobbes, Rousseau, d’Holbach, Berkeley, Voltaire, Adam Smith; and 18th-century Orientalism)

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

 Researcher, Religion and Psychology Unit, University of Cambridge, October 2010–July 2014 (working on religious fundamentalisms, especially Islamic extremism)

Junior Scholar, Carnegie Centre, Moscow, August–October 2008 (working on Russian Idealism)

Research assistant, Truman Institute, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, January–May 2008 (working on Iranian Messianism)

OTHER 

Introduction to AI Certificate, Oxford Foundry, University of Oxford, May 2021

LANGUAGES 

French (native), English (near-native), German, Spanish (fluent); Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Italian (good); Latin

  • TORFL (via the LSE, London) (Language fluency diploma in Russian), 2009
  • Grosses Deutsches Sprachdiplom, Stufe II, 2002

REFEREES

Dr Paul Kerry, FRHS

Supernumerary Fellow, Rothemere Institute for American Studies, University of Oxford

Visiting Fellow, Centre for Theology and Modern European Thought, University of Oxford

Visiting Fellow, Christ Church, Oxford

paul.kerry@history.ox.ac.uk

Dr John Davis

Associate Professor of Modern History,

University of Oxford

Dr Yossi David

Research Fellow

Van Leer Institute Jerusalem

Jerusalem, Israel

joseph.david@huji.mail.ac.il

Professor Laurence Brocklisss, FRHS

Professor Emeritus of European History,

University of Oxford

laurence.brockliss@magd.ox.ac.uk

Fellow in History, The Queen’s College, Oxford

John.davis@history.ox.ac.uk

Dr Bernard Gowers

Senior Tutor,

St Benet’s College, Oxford

Bernard.gowers@history.ox.ac.uk