History Department

Education

• Ph.D., History, Stanford University, 2004
• M.A., History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University, 1998
• B.A., History, UC Berkeley, 1995

About

Daniel Stolzenberg is a historian of knowledge, specializing in early modern Europe. In addition to his primary appointment in the History Department, he is affiliated with the programs in Science and Technology Studies, Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and Italian, and is a member of the Graduate Group in the Study of Religion.

Disambiguation: This page is about the the living American historian. For the seventeenth-century Bohemian alchemist-poet, see Daniel Stolz von Stolzenberg.

Research Focus

Professor Stolzenberg studies the history of science and scholarship from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Although his research ranges across Western Europe, he has a particular interest in Rome and Italy. His book Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of Antiquity won the ACHA Marraro Prize for Italian History and was named a notable book of 2013 by Gizmodo. His next book, The Holy Office in the Republic of Letters, will look at scientific communication and religious conflict in the seventeenth century by investigating secret collaborations between Dutch booksellers and the Roman Inquisition.

Select Publications

Stolzenberg, D. (2013) Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of Antiquity, University of Chicago Press.

Stolzenberg, D. (2022) “The Age of Pious Erudition: Kircher’s Critics in Context,” Revue de l'histoire des religions 239:2, 297-324.  

Stolzenberg, D. (2022) “What Was Oriental Studies in Early Modern Europe: ‘Oriental Languages’ and the Making of as Discipline,” in Allure of the Ancient: Receptions of the Ancient Middle East, ca. 1600–1800, ed. M. Geoga and J. Steele. Leiden: Brill, 343–374.

Stolzenberg, D. (2019) "The Holy Office in the Republic of Letters: Roman Censorship, Dutch Atlases, and the European Information Order, circa 1660," Isis 110:1, 1–23.

Stolzenberg, D. (2016) “A Spanner and His Works: Books, Letters, and Scholarly Communication Networks in Early Modern Europe,” in For the Sake of Learning: Essays in Honor of Anthony Grafton (Eds.) Blair and Goeing, Leiden: Brill, 157–172.

Stolzenberg, D. (2013) "Athanasius Kircher and the Hieroglyphic Sphinx," Public Domain Review.

Teaching

Professor Stolzenberg teaches courses on early modern European and world history, the history of science and technology, intellectual history, and history of religion.

Awards

• Howard R. Marraro Prize for best book in Italian History, American Catholic Historical Association, 2014
• University of California President’s Faculty Research Fellowship in the Humanities, 2013–14
• Hellman Fellow, 2010-2011