Dr. Mikkel Munthe Jensen

Academic Profile

Mikkel Munthe Jensen works on the History of Science and the History of Universities. His focus is on the early modern cultural and political history of science and higher learning and on the rapidly developing fields of digital humanities. Since 1st January 2018, he has been a Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter (Postdoc) at the international research project ‘Natural Law 1625-1850’ at the Max Weber Kolleg, Uni Erfurt (see research project below). At the European University Institute in Florence (EUI), he wrote his doctoral dissertation “From learned cosmopolitanism to scientific inter-nationalism – The patriotic transformation of Nordic academia and academic culture during the long Eighteenth Century”, supervised by Professors Stéphane van Damme and Ann Thomson. Since May 2016, Mikkel Munthe Jensen has been the national Management Committee Member for Denmark in the COST Action project ‘Reassembling the Republic of Letters’ at Oxford University. He is also the project coordinator and co-developer of the digital visualisation and exploration tool VIA, Virtual Itineraries of Academics. Mikkel Munthe Jensen has held recent guest lectures at Tübingen University and at the European University Institute. He has taught at the University of Florence, and until January 2017 he worked as research assistant and tutor in digital humanities (prosopographies, mapping and visualisations) at the European University Institute.

Mikkel Munthe Jensen holds the following degrees from the European University Institute (PhD and Master of Research) and from Copenhagen University (Candidatus Magisterii (MA) and Bachelor of Arts).

Curriculum Vitae

• 2018/03: PhD in History and Civilization, European University Institute, Florence
• Since 1st January 2018: Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies and at Gotha Research Centre, University of Erfurt
• Since 2016/05: Managing Committee Member (Denmark) of the COST Action IS1310 Reassembling the Republic of Letter
• 2016/01: Visiting Scholar at Oxford University, STSM under COST Action Reassembling the Republic of Letters, invited by COST Action project director Prof. Dr. Howard Hotson
• 2014/06: Master of Research, European University Institute, Florence
• 2013/09-2017/11: PhD Studies in History and Civilization at the European University Institute, Florence
• 2012/01: Master of Arts (Candidatus magisterii) in History, University of Copenhagen
• 2009/01: Bachelor of Arts in History, University of Copenhagen

Full CV (pdf)

Research project

My research project at the Max Weber Kolleg and the Forschungszentrum Gotha in collaboration with Forschungsbibliothek Gotha is a part of the international research project ‘Natural Law 1625-1850’ under direction of Prof. Dr. Knud Haakonssen, Dr. Frank Grunert and Prof. Dr. Diethelm Klippel.

My work and research has a twofold aim. First, I am developing and implementing a prosopographical data model concerning early modern natural law scholars with the specific aim of creating a database that can benefit all researchers and students with interest in early modern natural law and its institutional, social and political setting. The database is first and foremost a detailed open reservoir of information that contains not only structured biographical and bibliographical data but also links to digitalised source material as well as commentaries made by individual specialists. Building upon this reservoir, a long-term goal is to develop and implement analytical visualisation tools in the database, so users easily can conduct both general and specialised data explorations. The creation of such a database is in essence a transnationally collaborative and open-ended digital enterprise, which also means that populating and expanding the database rely on contributions from the already established research networks within the Natural Law 1625-1850 project and on widening the circle of contributors in the field. The basic aim of the database is thus to provide an essential tool for the Natural Law project to compile and structure data and conduct research on early modern natural law scholars, their works and their institutions.

Within this research framework and on the basis of the Natural Law database, I am conducting a comparative study of the disciplinary differences in natural law teaching at a selected number of German and Scandinavian universities; i.e. I am examining what kind of natural law was taught in which faculty at each of these universities during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. By studying academic-institutional sources (e.g. lecture catalogues, student matriculations, consistorial accounts), as well as educational sources (e.g. text books, lectures, notes), I wish to analyse the disciplinary shifts and displacements of natural law teaching during the early modern period, and to what extent these disciplinary displacements correlate with the intellectual-historical development of natural law that is described in the current historiography. By examining who taught what where, and how and why this changed through time and space, my main research aim is to place and trace the academic teaching of natural law in its historical and institutional context, thereby making an important historical contribution to the study of natural law.

Publications

• Jensen, Mikkel Munthe (ed.), Natural Law 1625-1850: Database (Erfurt, Gotha, Jena: ThULB, 2019-) [Online Database]
• Jensen, Mikkel Munthe, Howard Hotson, Gabriella Martinez, Dagmar Mrozik & Thomas Wallnig, “IV.5 Prosopographies of the Republic of Letters” in Howard Hotson & Thomas Wallnig (eds.), Reassembling the Republic of Letters in the Digital Age - Standards, Systems, Scholarship, (Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, 2019), p. 371-399 Open Access. Specific contributions:
  • Howard Hotson & Mikkel Munthe Jensen: “Universities as Point of Departure”, p. 373-377
  • Jensen: “Charting the Travels of Nordic Academics via VIA (Virtual Itineraries of Academics), p. 378-383
• Jensen, Mikkel Munthe, Marco Quaggiotto & Joëlle Weis, “VIA – Virtual Itineraries of Academics. A Digital Exploration Tool for Early Modern Academic Travels”, in Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Gesellschaft zur Erforschung des 18. Jahrhunderts, (Böhlau Verlag: Vienna, 2019), p. 13-30
• Jensen, Mikkel Munthe, “Contesting the Universality of European Academic Degrees - The Case of Nordic Doctoral Degrees during the Long Eighteenth Century” in Early Modern Universities and the Scientiae, ed. Vittoria Feola & Giovanni Silvano (Cambridge Scholars Press) [Forthcoming]
• Jensen, Mikkel Munthe, “From Learned Cosmopolitanism to Scientific Inter-Nationalism - The Patriotic Transformation of Nordic Academia and Academic Culture during the Long Eighteenth Century, Vol I”, (European University Institute, Doctoral Dissertation, 2018), 378 pages
• Jensen, Mikkel Munthe, “From Learned Cosmopolitanism to Scientific Inter-Nationalism - The Patriotic Transformation of Nordic Academia and Academic Culture during the Long Eighteenth Century, Vol II - Appendix”, (European University Institute, Doctoral Dissertation, 2018), 146 pages
• Jensen, Mikkel Munthe, Marco Quaggiotto & Joëlle Weis, VIA – Virtual Itineraries of Academic [Online exploration tool](2016)
• Jensen, Mikkel Munthe, “De lærdes identitet og fællesskab i den danske helstat – fædrelandspatriotiske og transnationale lærde selvforståelser i 1700-tallets anden halvdel” published in Historisk Tidsskrift, Vol. 113, No. 1, 2013, p. 80-121.