Shimer Great Books

Daniela Barberis

Assistant Professor in the Shimer Great Books School

Contact

+1 630 637 5485
dsbarberis@noctrl.edu

Office Location

5 S. Loomis Street, Room 11

Profile Picture

Daniela Barberis is on the faculty of the Shimer Great Books School at North Central College, where she has taught across the curriculum in the Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities and Integrative Studies. She obtained her Ph.D. from the Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science at the University of Chicago and held several post-doctoral fellowships. She also taught at several large state schools, including Ohio State, Iowa State and Michigan State, until finding her academic home at Shimer College in 2011. She is originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, but grew up mostly in Brazil and has lived in the US since the early 90s. 

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Selected Scholarship

“The Philosophers of the Année sociologique and the Status of Sociology as a Science,” in Metaphysics and the Sciences in Nineteenth Century France, Series in Philosophical Historiographies, Brill, 28 March, 2025. 

“The Année sociologique as Training Ground for Sociology: Durkheim, Mauss, and the Art of Book Reviewing in fin de siècle France,” in A Global History of Research Education: Disciplines, Institutions and Nations, 1840-1950. Special issue of History of Universities, XXXIV, 1(2021). Edited by Ku-Ming Chang and Alan Rocke. Oxford University Press, August 2021, pp. 108-129. 

“Philosophy: Epistemological Debates and Bergson,” in The Cambridge History of French Thought, Edited by Michael Moriarty and Jeremy Jennings. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

"Sociology," in The Cambridge History of French Thought, Edited by Michael Moriarty and Jeremy Jennings. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

“Hysteria in the Male: Images of Masculinity in Late 19th Century France,” in Phallacies: Historical Intersections of Disability and Masculinity, Edited by Kathleen Brian and James Trent. Oxford University Press, September 2017.

“In Search of an Object: Organicist Sociology and the Reality of Society in Fin-de-Siècle France.” History of the Human Sciences, 16 (2003): 51-72

“Moral Education for the Elite of Democracy: The classe de philosophie Between Sociology and Philosophy.” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 38 (2002): 355-369.

“Changing Practices of Commemoration in Neurology: Comparing Charcot's 1925 and 1993 Centennials.” Osiris, 14 (1999): 102-117. Commemorative Practices in Science: Historical Perspectives on the Politics of Collective Memory. Edited by Pnina G. Abir-Am and Clark A. Elliot.

Courses Taught

The Shape of the World

What is Scientific Objectivity?

Environmental Justice

The Dark Side of Evolution

From Pre-Modern Science to the Chemical Revolution

Integrative Studies: Ancient to Early Modern World

Evolution, Classification and Animal Behavior

Methodology of the Social Sciences

Society, Culture and Personality

Literature of the Ancient World

Integrative Studies: Classical Rome to Middle Ages

Integrative Studies: Ancient Mesopotamia to Classical Athens