Prf Cristina Chimisso

Professional biography

Cristina Chimisso (PhD, Cambridge) joined the Open University in July 2000. Previously she lectured at the University of Aberdeen, was George and May Sarton fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Cambridge, Mass.), research fellow at the Department of History of Science, Harvard University, and Walter Rathenau fellow at the Max Planck Institute for History of Science (Berlin).

She was Head of the Philosophy Department from 2009 to 2013; and a member of the OU Senate 2015-2018.

She is the author of the monographs: 

Hélène Metzger: historian and historiographer of the sciences, Routledge 2019; you can listen to an interview in which she discusses this book here: The Philosophy of Hélène Metzger with Cristina Chimisso – Hermitix – Podcast – Podtail; or here: The Philosophy of Hélène Metzger with Cristina Chimisso - YouTube

Writing the History of the Mind: Philosophy and Science in France 1900-1960s (Ashgate 2008), written with the support of an AHRC grant;

Gaston Bachelard: Critic of Science and the Imagination (Routledge 2001) you can listen to an interview in which she discusses this book here: The Philosophy of Gaston Bachelard with Cristina Chimisso by Hermitix (anchor.fm), or here: The Philosophy of Gaston Bachelard with Cristina Chimisso - YouTube

She was a member of the management committee of the British Society for the History of Philosophy for sixteen years (2001-2012; 2012-2020) and was BSHP’s secretary from 2002 to 2008; she is on editorial Board of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy; she was on the executive committee of the British Philosophical Association ( 2014-2019) and member of the Steering Committee of the History of Philosophy of Science Society (HOPOS) (2016-2019)

From 2008-2013, she was also part of the research networking programme ‘Philosophy of Science in a European perspective’, funded by the European Science Foundation; in Spring 2019 she was a Senior visiting fellow at the University of Milan. 

Research interests

Her research interests are in twentieth-century history of philosophy, historiography, philosophy of science and sociology of knowledge.

For her publications, see the 'publications' tab, Academia.edu and ResearchGate. 

Teaching interests

Her teaching has ranged from history of modern philosophy, Continental philosophy, historiography, epistemology and philosophy of science, to history of science (including history of psychology and psychoanalysis) and nineteenth and twentieth century cultural history.

At the Open University, her teaching has been mainly in the areas of epistemology, Continental philosophy, political philosophy and European studies. The part of her unit on Existentialism for a Level 1 module (A113) that covered Simone de Beavoir has been adapted as a short OpenLearn course, open to everyone: Simone de Beauvoir and the feminist revolution - OpenLearn - Open University - a113_2; her edited volume on European identities, written for a module (AA300) that is no longer taught, is available to buy (9780749296094: Exploring European Identities (Europe: Culture and Identities in a Contested Continent S.) - AbeBooks - Chimisso, Christina: 0749296097);