Stéphane Van Damme (born 1969) is historian and Professor of Early Modern History at the

École normale supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, France. Graduated from the university of Panthéon-Sorbonne and the

EHESS The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (, EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The school awards Master and PhD degrees alone and conjo ...

, ''agrégé d’histoire'', he received his PhD in 2000 under the supervision of Daniel Roche. After entering at the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

(Centre Alexandre Koyré) in 2001, he moved to

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at the Maison Française to take in charge the programme in history of science. In 2007, he was appointed by the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...

as associate professor in Modern French History and director of its Eighteenth-Century studies center. In 2009, he moved to

SciencesPo Sciences Po () or Sciences Po Paris, also known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies (), is a public research university located in Paris, France, that holds the status of ''grande école'' and the legal status of . The university's unde ...

as associate professor in early modern history and history of science at the Centre d’histoire. He got his

habilitation à diriger des recherches Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

in 2010 at the

under the guidance of

Roger Chartier Roger Chartier, (; born December 9, 1945, in Lyon), is a French historian and historiographer who is part of the Annales school. He works on the history of books, publishing and reading. He teaches at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences ...

and became full professor at SciencesPo in 2011. Since 2013, he has been Professor of the

History of Science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient history, ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural science, natural, social science, social, and formal science, formal. Pr ...

at the Department of History and European Civilization of the

European University Institute The European University Institute (EUI) is an international postgraduate and post-doctoral research-intensive university and an intergovernmental organisation with juridical personality, established by its founding member states to contribu ...

based in

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, Italy. In September 2020, he joined the Département d'Histoire at the École normale supérieure in Paris as Professor of

Early Modern History The early modern period is a historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There is no exact date ...

and is running the Master programme in Transnational History. In June 2022, he created with Blaise Wilfert the Centre Interdisciplinaire d'études européennes at the Ecole Normale Supérieure.

Research interests

Van Damme's research examines the relations between early modern scientific knowledge and European culture between 1650 and 1850 by looking at scientific centres (Lyon, Paris, London, Edinburgh, New York), founding fathers of the Scientific Revolution (Descartes), paradigmatic disciplines (philosophy, natural history, antiquarianism, geography), and recently, imperial projects (North America, French Asia). In 2014, he published a collection of essays on cultural history of philosophy, ''A toutes voiles vers la vérité'', which explored the role played by the (natural) philosopher in

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European societies. It contrasts ''philosophe'' and ''philosopher'' in the two different spheres of activity: on the one hand the publicist and man of letters, and on the other the scientist, scholar and natural philosopher. As editor of the Volume 1 of the ''Histoire des sciences et des savoirs'', published in 2014, and ''A Global History of Linnean Science'' (

Voltaire Foundation The Voltaire Foundation is a research department of the University of Oxford, founded by Theodore Besterman in the 1970s. It publishes the definitive edition of the ''Complete Works of Voltaire'' (''Œuvres complètes de Voltaire''), as well as ' ...

, 2018), he explored master narratives in the history of science and knowledge, both by displacing the historical chronology focussed on the "old regime of science” and by contrasting Early Modern Sciences with the modernist paradigm. His second avenue of research deals with the urban history of science. After attempting a spatial history of Parisian sciences in ''Paris, capital philosophique'' (2005), he analyzed the relationships between modern sciences and metropolis by looking at the birth of

urban archaeology Urban archaeology is a sub discipline of archaeology specializing in the material past of towns and cities where long-term human habitation has often left a rich record of the past. In modern times, when someone talks about living in a city, the ...

as a discipline in Paris and London (in his book ''Metropoles de papiers'', 2012). His recent publications includes a special issue of the journal ''History of Science'', co-edited with William Carruthers on archaeology and material history of science. He edited with the art historian Charlotte Guichard the volume ''Antiquités dépaysées. Une histoire globale des cultures antiquaires au XVIIIe siècle'' (Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2022). Taking into account the environmental crisis, his current project explores the emergence of a natural history of metropolises from the 17th century to the end of the 19th century when urban ecology started to split the field into different sectors of research (natural sciences and social and urban studies).

Monographs

*''Descartes : essai d'histoire culturelle d'une grandeur philosophique,'' Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2002. *''Paris, capitale philosophique : de la Fronde à la Révolution,'' Paris: O. Jacob, 2005. *''Le temple de la sagesse : savoirs, écriture et sociabilité ubrbaine, Lyon, XVIIe-XVIIe siècle.,'' Paris: Éditions de l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2005. *''L'épreuve libertine : morale, soupçon et pouvoirs dans la France baroque'', Paris: CNRS Editions, 2008. *''Métropoles de papier : naissance de l'archéologie urbaine à Paris et à Londres, XVIIe-XXe siècle'', Paris:

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, 2012. *'' A toutes voiles vers la vérité : une autre histoire de la philosophie au temps des Lumières,'' Paris:

Éditions du Seuil Éditions du Seuil (), also known as Le Seuil, is a French publishing house established in 1935 by Catholic intellectual Jean Plaquevent (1901–1965), and currently owned by La Martinière Groupe. It owes its name to this goal "The ''seuil'' (th ...

, 2014. *
Sciences en société de la Renaissance à nos jours
', Paris :

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, 2017. *''Dans l’absolu. De Louis XIII à Louis XIV - Histoire dessinée de la France T. 11'' (''bande dessinée''), scenarist : Stéphane Van Damme, illustrator : Héloïse Chochois, Paris : La Revue dessinée / La Découverte, 2021 *''La Prose des savoirs''. Pragmatique des mondes intellectuels, Strasbourg, Presses universitaires de Strasbourg, 2020. *''Seconde Nature''. Rematérialiser les sciences de Bacon à Tocqueville, Dijon, Presses du réel, 2020. *''Les Voyageurs du doute''. L'invention d'un altermondialiste libertin (1620-1820), Paris, Fayard, 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Damme, Stephane Living people French expatriates in Italy 21st-century French historians 21st-century French male writers Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University alumni Academic staff of Sciences Po Academics of the University of Warwick French expatriates in the United Kingdom Expatriate academics in the United Kingdom Academic staff of the European University Institute 1969 births