People

Giulia Rispoli

Visiting Scholar (Mar 2022-Jan 2026)

Giulia Rispoli is an Assistant Professor in History of Science at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca' Foscari University in Venice, and a Visiting Scholar in Department I of the Institute.

She specialized in the history and epistemology of the modern natural sciences, especially in Russia, Europe, and North America. She worked and published on a variety of topics such as the history of systems theories—in particular, Alexander Bogdanov’s Tektology as an alternative to the general systems theory and cybernetics—the social study of science in the Soviet context, biosphere theories in Russia, Europe and American history, Earth System Science, environmental diplomacy during the Cold War, Anthropocene history, and anthropogenic markers. Recent research interests include geoanthropology, the study of forgotten sources of environmental thinking, the Nuclear Winter, and the relationship between art, science, and literature.

Her current research is titled “Planetary Genealogies, Historicizing the Anthropocene." It contributes to the study and evaluation of the historical, epistemological, and scientific foundations of the Anthropocene, a term that indicates a new geological epoch characterized by the global impact of human activities on the planet. In particular, she studies and reconstructs the genealogies of two notions – the "biosphere-geosphere" developed in Russia and Eastern Europe, and the “Earth system“ of Western ascendance – and how they help to reveal different ways in which our planet was conceived and represented in the twentieth century in relation to human influence, and how they become an object of global politics.

Over the past three years, she has co-organized the interdisciplinary project and online multimedia publication “Anthropogenic Markers: Stratigraphy and Contexts,” which emerged from a collaboration between the MPIWG, the HKW, and the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) to study the diverse systemic historical trends and processes that are manifested in the global distribution of sedimentary and geochemical markers used by the AWG to define the Anthropocene’s “golden spike.”

Over the past 6 years, Giulia has been a Research Scholar at the Institute. Moreover, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle and at the Centre Alexander Koyré in Paris, and taught at Indiana University, Bloomington, at the Cohn Institute of Tel Aviv University, and at the Osteuropa-Institute at the Freie Universität Berlin.
 

Projects

Anthropogenic Markers: Historical and Material Contexts of a Twentieth-Century Transition in Earthly Matters

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Epistemic Configurations: The Formation of Anthropocene Knowledge

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Geoanthropology

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IV. Anthropocene Formations

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Material Practices: The Anthropocene Earth in Formation

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The Water City: The Political Epistemology of Hydrogeological Praxis

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Tracing the Earth System Before Earth-system Science

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No projects were found for this scholar.

Selected Publications

Robinson, Sam, Matthew Adamson, Gordon Barrett, Lif Lund Jacobsen, Simone Turchetti, Aya Homei, Péter Marton, Leah Aronowsky, Iqra Choudry, Johan Gärdebo, Jaehwan Hyun, Gerardo Ienna, Carringtone Kinyanjui, Beatriz Martínez-Rius, Júlia Mascarello,…

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Omodeo, Pietro Daniel, Rodolfo Garau, and Giulia Rispoli (2023). “Historical Geoanthropology.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History of Ideas 11 (22): 8:1-8:12. https://doi.org/10.13135/2280-8574/7331 .

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Omodeo, Pietro Daniel, Rodolfo Garau, and Giulia Rispoli, eds. (2023). Historical Geoanthropology. Special issue, Journal of Interdisciplinary History of Ideas 11 (22). Torino: GISI — UniTO. https://www.ojs.unito.it/index.php/jihi/issue/view/606.

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Rispoli, Giulia (2023). “The Evolution of the Anthroposphere: Historicizing Geoanthropology.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History of Ideas 11 (22): 10:1-10:31. https://doi.org/10.13135/2280-8574/7338 .

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Past Events

Workshop

Anthropogenic Markers Workshop

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Early Career Seminar

Online Public Discourse on Artificial Intelligence and Ethics in China: Context, Content, and Implications

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Cold War Seminar Series

CANCELED: Nuclear Diplomacy: How Knowledge Becomes Worthy of Global Circulation

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Cold War Seminar Series

POSTPONED: Socialism and Scientific Internationalism in Sino-British Scientific Networks from World War to Cold War

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Cold War Seminar Series

POSTPONED: From Soil Erosion to Global Warming: The Postwar Internationalist Origins of Global-scale Environmental Crisis

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Cold War Seminar Series

POSTPONED: Rethinking Collaboration: Medical Research and Working Relationships at the Iranian Pasteur Institute

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Cold War Seminar Series

The Common Problems of Modern Societies: IIASA as a Case for Détente Science

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Cold War Seminar Series

Margaret Thatcher, the Cold War, and International Science in the 1980s

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Cold War Seminar Series

Changing Channel: What is Science Diplomacy and How Could It Help Us to Better Understand Cold War Science?

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Presentations, Talks, & Teaching Activities

“Pre-Gaian Thinkers: Vladimir Vernadskij and the Foundation of Biospherics.” Gaia and Earth System Science: scientific, historical and philosophical perspectives, IHPST

Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris

“Rethinking Boundaries: Soviet Cybernetics across the Biosphere, the Ecosphere and the Noosphere Dimensions.” Experiencing the Global Environment

The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (dep. II), Berlin

“Systems theories and the 20th century global ecology.” Le développement de l'écologie scientifique et l'émergence des éthiques de l'environnement

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris

“To Mars and Back: The Science–Fiction Interface in Russian Interplanetary Utopia.” International Congrés Ciència i Ficció

Societat Catalana d’Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica, Barcelona

“From the Sun to the Earth: Biosphere as a living organism in Soviet Geo-ecology.” The 24th International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine

The University of Manchester (Symposium: The Planet Earth, the Environment and the Cold War)

News & Press

FAZ publishes report on Anthropocene Working Group

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Publication Anthropogenic Markers: Stratigraphy and Context published online and open access

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Applications open for Anthropocene Campus Lisboa: Parallax, deadline October 15, 2019

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