Marusic awarded Marie Curie Fellowship for philosophy research

Philosphy professor to study in Germany for up to two years

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Jennifer Marusic was recently awarded the Marie Curie Fellowship for her research in the history of philosophy titled “Three Conceptions of Judgment in Early Modern Philosophy.”

The Marie Curie Fellowship is sponsored through the Gerda Henkel Foundation’s M4HUMAN (Mobility for experienced researchers in historical humanities and Islamic studies) program. M4HUMAN aims to increase global interaction between researchers in the historical humanities, academic exchange and awareness of different research environments.

Marusic’s project inspects English-born John Locke, French-born René Descartes and Scottish-born David Hume.

“My plan is to work on the arguments for three different views about the nature of judgment in the early modern period,” said Marusic. “The fellowship allows faculty to spend up to two years in Germany and I thought that Berlin would be a great place to pursue my research, since there is a lot of interesting work done in the history of philosophy in Berlin. I was thrilled and honored to be selected.”

Marusic hails from California and received her Ph.D. from UC-Berkeley. She spent several months in Berlin during graduate school and admits that it “did have an influence on my pursuing this fellowship.”

During her stay in Germany, Marusic will work alongside Professor Dominik Perler of Humboldt University, who has published extensively on medieval and early modern philosophy in both English and German.

“I wrote to Professor Perler several months ago and described my research to him in detail,” said Marusic. “I’ve also been in touch with several other people at Humboldt about potentially collaborating with them while I’m in Berlin, though Professor Perler will be my official host.” 

Marusic initially planned to work in Germany only during the 2013-2014 academic year, but may be able to extend her leave. “I’ll miss Brandeis and my students, but I’m also looking forward to the adventure of going abroad for a while,” said Marusic. “The fellowship will give me a chance to spend a significant amount of time just on my research project. This is a rare chance and will be very beneficial to my work, I hope.”