Maria Teresa Costa studied Philosophy at Padua University and at Humboldt University in Berlin, and obtained her PhD in Philosophy with a fellowship from Padua University with a dissertation on Walter Benjamin. After her PhD, she was awarded a series of postdoctoral positions at the Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung in Berlin and at the Forum für Kunstgeschichte in Paris, among others. From 2013 to 2018 she was Academic Assistant to the Director of the Kunsthistorisches Institut (KHI, Max Planck Institute) in Florence, Prof. Gerhard Wolf, and then Research Scholar at the KHI within the International Research Group "Bilderfahrzeuge. Aby Warburg’s Legacy and the Future of Iconology" (founded by the BMBF). As part of this project she spent six months at the Warburg Institute in London. From July to December 2016 Maria Teresa Costa worked as a Research Scholar in Department I at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, where she was a Visiting Scholar until February 2019. Before joining the GMPG in March 2019 she spent three months at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome (Max Planck Institute for Art History).
A strong interdisciplinary character marks out her research, which is located at the crossroads between philosophy, art history, and the history of science and includes works in aesthetics, political philosophy, epistemology, art theory and historiography, as well as in Translation Studies. Her current focus is on the history of art history from the nineteenth century onwards. In the context of the GMPG group, she worked until 2022 on the history of art history and of the architecture of buildings, infrastructures, and real estate of the Max Planck Society.
Projekte
Art History around 1900 as Art’s “Transcultural Reflection” avant la lettre
Selected Publications
Costa, Maria Teresa (2023). Das Kunsthistorische Institut in Florenz (Max-Planck-Institut) und die Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte). Preprint : Ergebnisse des Forschungsprogramms zur Geschichte der Max-Planck…
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Costa, Maria Teresa (2022). “A Transcultural Approach to Art History through the Lens of Its first International Conferences.” History of Humanities 7 (2): 235–250. https://doi.org/10.1086/721312.
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Costa, Maria Teresa n.d. “Anacronismi e tempi potenziali come strumenti teorici della Kunstwissenschaft intorno al Novecento.” In Temporalité et potentialité dans les oeuvres d’arts visuels, de la Renaissance à nos jours, ed. E. Jollet. Paris:…
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Costa, Maria Teresa (2020). “Bilderwanderungen: Umberto Boccionis memorialer Atlas.” In Bilderfahrzeuge: Aby Warburgs Vermächtnis und die Zukunft der Ikonologie, ed. A. Beyer, H. Bredekamp, U. Fleckner, and G. Wolf, 2. Aufl., 212–221. Berlin:…
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Presentations, Talks, & Teaching Activities
Biennial Conference of the International Walter Benjamin Society (IWBS), Max Planck Institute for the History of Science / Akademie der Künste, Berlin
Accademia La Colombaria, Florenz (invited chair)
9th Conference of the European Society for the History of Science „Visual, Material, and Sensory Cultures of Science”, University of Bologna (virtual platform)
Université Jean Moulin- Lyon 3 (invited speaker) – canceled
Accademia La Colombaria, Florenz (invited chair) – postponed
University of Cape Town, Africa (invited speaker – not attended)
International Conference “The Making of Art Expertise”, Utrecht University/ Amsterdam University (invited speaker)
“The Making of the Humanities VII", Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of the Humanities, University of Amsterdam
Panel talk “Expertise in Art and Science II: Art (History), Conservation and Modern Science and Technology,” at the Annual Meeting of the History of Science Society, Seattle, USA
International Conference, Warburg Institute, London (co-organizer and chair)
Images on the Move: Depots, Routes, Borders, Spaces, Warburg Institute London
International Workshop “The Making of Technique in the Arts: Concepts and Practice from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century,” Utrecht University (invited speaker)
Workshop “Die Jugendwerke Michelangelos (1891),” First Meeting of the Edition of Wölfflin’s Gesammelte Werke, Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome (invited speaker)
International Walter Benjamin Society Conference 2017 “Walter Benjamin and Method,” Worcester College, University of Oxford (invited speaker)
Warburg Institute, London
International Workshop at the KHI Florence, MPI (organizer and chair)
International Conference of the Reseach Group Bilderfahrzeuge “Das Verirrte Kunstwerk. Funktion und Rezeption vom Wege abgekommener Bilderfahrzeuge,” Warburg Haus, Hamburg
Interdisciplinary Workshop “Materialität im Prozess,” a cooperation between the DFG-Graduiertenkollegs Materialität und Produktion of the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf and the KHI Florenz, MPI
Seminario permanente di Estetica, University of Florence