Ovanes Akopyan
I received my BA, MA, and Candidate of Sciences degrees from Lomonosov Moscow State University before moving to the University of Warwick to do my PhD in Renaissance Studies under the supervision of Dr Maude Vanhaelen and Dr Paul Botley. My thesis, “Controversies on Astrology in Renaissance Italy (late 15th and early 16th centuries)”, provides for the first time a comprehensive study of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem and its immediate reception. No doubt, four years at Warwick with its vibrant and warm learning environment has been the most pleasant period of my professional education. Warwick's excellent academic reputation allowed me to find a postdoctoral position right after the end of my PhD programme.
From October 2017, I am a research fellow in the project 'NOSCEMUS: Latin and early modern scientific literature' supported by the ERC advanced grant (PI Prof. Dr Martin Korenjak). The project aims to advance our understanding of the interrelation of early modern science and Latin as the scientific lingua franca of the time. It intends to demonstrate how Latin literature, drawing on its rhetorical heritage and developing it further in the process, succeeded in bringing science to its readers and thereby contributing to its long-term success. This interdisciplinary project, which brings together specialists from various disciplines (philology, Neo-Latin studies, intellectual history, natural sciences) will result in five interlinked monographs that show the important steps in conveying science to the reader: according to the ancient rhetorical tradition, these are naming, description and explanation, persuasion, and promotion.
At Innsbruck, I will be working on a project provisionally entitled 'Explaining Natural Disasters: Science, Natural Philosophy, and Rhetoric in the Early Modern World.'
My Academia.edu page: https://uibk.academia.edu/OvanesAkopyan
Email address: ovanes dot akopyan at uibk dot ac dot at