Gustave M. Berne Professor

North American Editor, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie

Biography

Christia Mercer studied art history in New York and Rome, before going to graduate school in philosophy. She has received the Latin Certificate, Gregorian University, Rome, Italy (1980-81); a Fulbright Scholarship, Leibniz Archive, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany (1984-85); 
Ph.D., Philosophy, Princeton University (1989); Humboldt Fellowship, Leibniz Archive, 
Universität Münster, Münster, Germany (1993-94); and the Sovern Fellowship, American Academy, Rome, Italy (2009-10). She joined the Philosophy Department at Columbia in 1991, and became Gustave M. Berne Professor in 2003. She is active in feminist organizations on campus, and directed the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, 2000-01. She gave the Ernst Cassirer Lectures at the University of Hamburg in 2005, was visiting professor at Oslo, Norway, Spring (1998), Centre Alexandre Koyré, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (2003, 2005, 2007), and the Seminar für Geistesgeschichte und Philosophie der Renaissance, University of Munich, Germany (2003). She won the 2008 Columbia College Great Teacher Award.

Areas of Present Research 


Early modern philosophy with special focus on sixteenth and century Platonism and humanism, history of science, metaphysics, and philosophical method. Four main works in progress: (1) an introduction to Leibniz's philosophy which will be part of the Blackwell's Great Minds series; (2) a series of articles on how the interpretation offered in her book, Leibniz's Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development, applies to Leibniz's later works; (3) a book-length reevaluation of the development of early modern philosophy in pre-Enlightenment Germany, entitled ‘Divine Madness': Metaphysics, Method, and Mind in Early Modern German Philosophy; and (4) a historical and critical study of the notion of matter in the development of seventeenth-century science, entitled Material Difficulties: Matter, Explanation, and Mind in Early Modern Philosophy. She is the general editor ofa new series of books entitled, Oxford Philosophical Concepts: A Philosophical and Historical Analysis of Major Concepts in the History of Philosophy.

Teaching:
Upper and lower level courses in the history of philosophy, Philosophy and Feminism, Literature Humanities, and Art Humanities.

For more information and for former syllabi, go to http://www.columbia.edu/~cm50/