Profile picture of Vera Keller

Vera Keller

Professor
Department Head, Department of History
History
Phone: 541-346-6903
Office: 309 McKenzie Hall
Office Hours: Winter 23, Tuesday 2:00-3:00 p.m., Wednesday 3:00-4:00 p.m.

Biography

Pronouns: she/her/hers

        I am a historian of early modern Europe particularly interested in the emergence of experimental science and the entanglements of research with capitalism, colonialism, and political economy and more broadly in the history of knowledge, of research, and of the research disciplines. I am the author of three monographs, Knowledge and the Public Interest, 1575–1725 (Cambridge UP, 2015), The Interlopers: Early Stuart Projects and the Undisciplining of Knowledge (Hopkins, 2023; listen to an interview about it here), and Curating the Enlightenment: Johann Daniel Major and the Experimental Century (Cambridge UP, forthcoming in July 2024), and over forty articles and book chapters. Most recently, I published "Lost in the Woods: Francis Bacon’s Errant Pathways in Knowledge," in an open access volume, Errors, False Opinions, and Defective Knowledge in early modern Europe, edited by Marco Faini and Marco Sgarbi and published by Firenze University Press. Along with Ted McCormick and Kelly Whitmer, I am currently at work editing a special issue of the Journal for the History of Knowledge entitled, "Knowledge and Power: Projecting the Modern World." You can find some of my recent articles on projects here:

Into the Unknown: Clues, Hints, and Projects in the History of Knowledge in History and Theory

Happiness and Projects between London and Vienna: Wilhelm von Schröder on the London Weavers' Riot of 1675, Workhouses, and Technological Unemployment in History of Political Economy

With Markus Friedrich and Christine von Oertzen, I co-edit a book series from De Gruyter, Cultures and Practices of Knowledge in History. For a full list of publications, please see my attached CV.