Gabriella Valera Gruber is  Professor of  Methodology and History of Historiography

at the University of Trieste- Department of History

Via Economo 4-34123 Trieste +39 040 5587525 valera@units.it
Abitazione: Via Matteotti 21-34138 Trieste Tel/Fax +39 040 638787 valeragruber@alice.it

Scientific Research and Teaching

Degree in Roman History at the University of Naples, under the direction of the great ancient historian Ettore Lepore. She always honours the Memory of this Teacher, she admired as a Model of Intellectual rigour and freedom.

She has taught Roman History and History of Ancient Historiography at the University of Calabria for several years, and subsequently History of Modern Historiography at the same university.   

Between 1988 and 1992 she has served as delegate of the Rector  of the University of Calabria for the relations with the regional government and the coordination of undergraduate orientation services.

Since 1992 she has taught successively Theory and History of Historiography and History of Modern and Contemporary Historiography at the University of Trieste where she is currently Professor of Methodology and History of Historiography .

She has coordinated and coordinates at present Erasmus Programmes (concerning both taught courses integrated with interuniversity intensive seminars in collaboration with the universities of Bilbao, Giessen, Rotterdam, and students studying abroad programmes, in collaboration with the universities of Frankfurt Oder, Bilbao, Vilnius )

She was visiting scholar at several universities and institutions abroad (Max-Planck-Institut fuer Geschichte of Goettingen, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Rechtsgeschichte of Frankfurt, Herzog-August-Bibliothek of Wolfenbuettel, Herder-Institut of Lipsia, Institut fuer Europaeische Geschichte of Mainz, City University of New York, Law School at the Harvard University, South Bank University of London, Trinity College of Cambridge).

She participated in the Conference European Identity: Religion Culture Technology organized within the Sophia Europa Project (Project of the Metanexus LSI supported by the John Templeton Foundation, Philadelphia), workgroup Culture, Technology Religion in Society coordinated by Eamonn Conway (University of Limerick).

She is founding member of the International Society for Cultural History

She is founder and responsible for the "World Youth Forum "Right to Dialogue"  www.castellodiduinopoesia.it

Research

After early researches into the history of ancient historiography she has turned her research activity on the history of modern and contemporary historiography, on the problems of the theory of history and on interdisciplinary research directions aiming at identifying the disciplinary status of the sciences concerning the moral-historical world in their relationships.

Their publications span several areas of research and a plurality of themes:

• ancient historiography: she has published on Tacit, the Latin and Greek historiography of the late antiquity, post-classic rhetoric

• the relationship between State and Historiography in the German area, particularly during the 18^th and 19^th century (publications on the Historical School of Goettingen, on B. G. Niebuhr, and on Th. Mommsen);

• the methodological debates and the theory of historical sources in the same area (publications on the “Encyclopaedia of the Historical Sciences” and on the “Encyclopaedia of the Juridical Sciences”, as well as on the “Theory and Philosophy of History” in the Aufklaerung);

• juridical theories of the “public subjectivity”, “publicity" and "form" in Law, with reference to the theoretical implications of history and to the consequential historiographical profiles between the end of the 18^th and the 19^th century (publications on the 17^th-century and 18^th-century German Public Law doctrin, on the Rational Law, on Kantian “republicanism”, on G, Jellinek);

• cultural history and the definition of “culture” with reference to the disciplinary traditions of politics and ethics (publications on Max Weber, on the Kulturgeschichte, and on ethical-juridical historiography, on historicism and on the Menger-Schmoller debate;

• scientific statute o modern and contemporary ethics (publication on Max Weber and Historicism)

• on Liberalism and its difficulties (publications on  M. Walzer’s critic of liberalism, on Tocqueville; on "the juridical profiles of the happyness");

• epistemological aspects of the contemporary debate about science, knowledge, and narration in history (publications on H. White, on the review Theory and History).

Her current research activity focuses on

• the forms of the historical discourse in modern and contemporary age (particularly Cultural History and "culturalist" approach)

• secularisation and scientific statute of modern and contemporary ethics

• public sphere and identity in the European historical discourse.

Not yet published speeches

The constitution of the historical-moral world and human responsibility ; (Conference "Human Persons and the God of Nature", Oxford, Ian Ramsey Centre, September 3rd-6th 2007)

For a cultural History of "Democracy" (Conference "Orientations. Inaugural conference of the International Society for Cultural History", Ghent University, August 27-31, 2008)