Faculty

Daniela Bleichmar

Associate Professor of Art History and History

Contact Information
E-mail: bleichma@usc.edu
Phone: (213) 821-6384
Office: VKC 351

LINKS
Curriculum Vitae
Faculty Profile on Departmental Website
Personal Website

Biographical Sketch

Daniela Bleichmar holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Art History and History. She received her BA from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in History (History of Science) from Princeton University, where she trained as a cultural historian of early modern science, specializing in the history of visual culture and the natural sciences in Europe and the Spanish Americas in the period 1500-1800.

Her research and teaching address the history of the Spanish empire, early modern Europe, visual and material culture in science, collecting and display, and the book, print, and prints.

She is the author of VISIBLE EMPIRE. BOTANICAL EXPEDITIONS AND VISUAL CULTURE IN THE HISPANIC ENLIGHTENMENT (University of Chicago Press, 2012). This book examines five scientific expeditions sent by the Spanish crown to the Americas and the Philippines between 1777 and 1808. These expeditions brought together naturalists and artists, who collaborated to produce thousands of illustrations of imperial nature. The book discusses the status and uses of images in eighteenth-century natural history; the importance of visual material in training the expert eyes and skilled hands of naturalists; the role of print culture in establishing a common vocabulary of scientific illustration; the interaction among visual evidence, textual evidence, and material evidence; and the ways in which colonial naturalists and artists appropriated and transformed European models, producing hybrid, local representations.

Dr. Bleichmar has also published articles on visual culture and natural history in the Spanish empire (detailed below) and a co-edited SCIENCE IN THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE EMPIRES, 1500-1800 (Stanford University Press, 2008) and COLLECTING ACROSS CULTURES IN THE EARLY MODERN WORLD (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).

Her current research includes a book-length project on the global exchange of naturalia, visual and material culture, books, and prints between the New World, Europe, and Asia ca. 1500–1800, with a particular emphasis on the global nature of colonial Latin American visual and material culture; and a project on health, healing, and religion in sixteenth-century Spanish America.

Education

A.B. History of Science, Harvard University
M.A. History, Princeton University
Ph.D. History, Princeton University

Academic Appointment, Affiliation, and Employment History

Tenure Track Appointments

Assistant Professor, University of Southern California, 08/2006-

PostDoctoral Appointments

Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship, University of Southern California, 08/2004-06/2006

Description of Research

Summary Statement of Research Interests

- The history of the Spanish Empire and early modern Europe, especially science, visual culture, and material culture

- The history of books, readers, print, and prints

- The history of looking

- The history of collecting and display

- The history of cultural encounters, colonialism, and imperialism

- The history of travel

Research Specialties

Early Modern Europe, especially visual and material culture, global exchanges, science, and print; Spanish Empire/Colonial Latin America; History of Collecting and Display

Affiliations with Research Centers, Labs, and Other Institutions

Latin American Studies Initiative at USC,http://college.usc.edu/latinamericanstudies/index.cfm
USC research cluster in Science, Technology, and Society,http://college.usc.edu/sts
USC-Getty Program in the History of Collecting and Display,http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/art_history/research_programs/collecting/index.html/
USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute,http://www.usc.edu/emsi
Visual Studies Graduate Certificate,http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/visualstudies/

Publications

Book

Bleichmar, D. (2012). Visible Empire. Colonial Botany and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment. University of Chicago Press. You can read about this book here
Bleichmar, Daniela and Peter C. Mancall (Ed.). (2011). Collecting across Cultures: Material Exchanges in the Early Modern Atlantic World. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. You can read about this book here
Bleichmar, Daniela; DeVos, Paula; Huffine, Kristin; and Sheehan, Kevin (Ed.). (2008). Science in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires (1500-1800). Stanford University Press. You can read about this book here

Book Chapter

Bleichmar, D. (2011). "Lo exótico en la colección de Lastanosa: el objeto, la mirada y la colección como espacio". Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa: arte y ciencia en el pp. 131–144. Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses.
Bleichmar, D. (2011). "Seeing the World in a Room: Looking at Exotica in Early Modern Collections". pp. 15-30. Collecting across Cultures: Material Exchanges in the Early Modern Atlantic.
Bleichmar, D., Mancall, P. C. (2011). Introduction. Collecting Across Cultures in the Early Modern Atl pp. 1-15. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Bleichmar, D. (2010). "The Geography of Observation: Distance and Visibility in Eighteenth-Century Botanical Travel". Histories of Scientific Observation pp. 373–395. University of Chicago Press: Histories of Scientific Observation.
Bleichmar, D. (2008). A Visible and Useful Empire: Visual Culture and Colonial Natural History in the Eighteenth-Century Spanish World. Science in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires (1500-1800)/Stanford University Press.
Bleichmar, D. (2008). "Looking at Exotica in Baroque Collections: The Object, the Viewer, and the Collection as a Space," in The Gentleman, the Virtuoso, the Inquirer: Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa and the Art of Collecting in Early Modern Spain. pp. 63-77. Middlesex: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Bleichmar, D. (2008). "Training the Naturalist’s Eye in the Eighteenth Century: Perfect Global Visions and Local Blind Spots," in Visualising the Unseen, Imagining the Unknown, Perfecting the Natural: Art and Science in the 18th and 19th Centuries. pp. 1-24. Middlesex: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Bleichmar, D. (2007). Atlantic Competitions: Botanical Trajectories in the Eighteenth-Century Spanish Empire. pp. 225-252. Science and Empire in the Atlantic World / Routledge.
Bleichmar, D. (2007). Training the Naturalist’s Eye in the Eighteenth Century: Perfect Global Visions and Local Blind Spots. pp. p. 166-190. Skilled Visions. Between Apprenticeship and Standards/Bergahn Books.
Bleichmar, D. (2007). "The Trajectories of Natural Knowledge in the Spanish Empire (ca. 1550–1650)". Beyond the Black Legend: Spain and the Scientific Revolution / / Mas alla de la Leyenda Negra: España y la Revolucion Cientifica/Soler.
Bleichmar, D. (2004). Books, Bodies, and Fields: Sixteenth-Century Transatlantic Encounters with New World Materia Medica. pp. p. 83-99. Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics/Pennsylvania University Press.

Journal Article

Bleichmar, D. (2012). "Learning to Look: Visual Expertise across Art and Science in Eighteenth-Century France". Eighteenth-Century Studies. Vol. 46 (1), pp. 85–111.
Bleichmar, D. (2011). "Seeing Peruvian Nature, Up Close and from Afar". Res. Vol. 59/60, pp. 82–95.
Bleichmar, D. (2009). "El imperio visible: la mirada experta y la imagen en las expediciones científicas de la ilustración". Cuadernos Dieciochistas. Vol. 9
Bleichmar, D. (2009). "Visible Empire: Scientific Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment". Postcolonial Studies. Vol. vol. 12, no. 9, pp. 441–466.
Bleichmar, D. (2007). Exploration in Print: Books and Botanical Travel from Spain to the Americas in the Late Eighteenth Century. Huntington Library Quarterly/Huntington Library. Vol. vol. 70 (no. 1 (March 2007): 129-151)
Bleichmar, D. (2006). Painting as Exploration: Visualizing Nature in Eighteenth-Century Colonial Science. Colonial Latin American Review/Taylor and Francis. Vol. vol. 15 (no. 1 (June 2006): 81-104)

Honors and Awards

USC Dornsife Distinguished Faculty Fellow, 8/16/2011-5/13/2013
Faculty Fellowship, USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute (deferred), 2008-2009
Getty Post-Doctoral Fellowship (for year 2008-2009), 2008-2009
USC or School/Dept Award for Teaching, General Education Teaching Award, 12/2008
Residency at the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (declined), Fall 2008
USC "Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences" Research Grant, 7/2007-7/2008
2007 Jerry Stannard Memorial Award for best article on early modern natural history or materia medica published by a young scholar, for "Books, Bodies, and Fields", 2007
Franklin Pease Memorial Prize for best article published in the Colonial Latin American Review in 2005 and 2006, 2007
Honored by Smithsonian magazine as one of "America’s Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences: 37 under 36." http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/innovators/bleichmar.html, 10/2007
Short-Term Research Grant, International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World at Harvard University, 6/2007-7/2007
USC-Del Amo Research Grant, 6/2007-7/2007
Award for the best dissertation on Latin American visual culture 2004-2006, Association for Latin American Art, 1/2007