Catarina Madruga (Caldas da Rainha, 1980)
@cmadruga
Humanities of Nature, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin
Leibniz-Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Research
Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4562-1313
Museum exhibition design, education, and curatorial work and responsibilities under this link
Currently
::: Postdoc researcher on the Colonial Provenances of Nature project at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin funded by the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste (German Lost Art Foundation).
::: Working on a research proposal
Academic degrees
[2020] Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon. Awarded in 2021 with the "Prémio Ciências.ID" for excellent Doctoral Dissertation in History and Philosophy of Sciences.
Title: Taxonomy and Empire. Zoogeographical research on Portuguese Africa, 1862-1881 PDF available here
[2013] MSc. degree in History and Philosophy of Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon.
Title: José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823-1907). A construção de uma persona científica PDF available here
[2006] Post-Graduate degree in Museum Studies by Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa. Two semesters. Courses included Museology, Museums and the Nation, Exhibition Design, Conservation, and Oral History.
[2004] Degree in Design by the Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade de Lisboa. Ten semesters. Courses included History of Design, Anthropology: Material Culture, Sociology, Aesthetics, Drawing, Materials, and Project Design.
Research stays
[2020] Fellowship at the Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde, Leipzig (Feb-Apr).
[2017] Visiting Student in the Department of History and Philosophy of Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK (Sep-Nov).
[2016-2017] Visiting Student in the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France (Nov-Jan).
[2022] with Anke teHeesen, Ina Heumann, Katja Kaiser, "(Excursionsseminar) Naturkunde und Kolonialismus", Master program Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. Summer Semester.
[2013-2017] Teaching Assistant at the History and Philosophy Department Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal. Undergraduate optional courses: "Ciência e Cultura" [Science and Culture] and "Ciência da Antiguidade ao Renascimento" [Science from the Antiquity to the Renaissance].
Museum work (more details here)
[2008-2011, 2019-present] External Curator for Historical Scientific Collections, MUHNAC ULisboa.
[2001-2009, 2013] Museum guide / Didactical materials for art, design, architecture, and natural sciences exhibits.
[2005-2009, 2013] Exhibition production and design.
Publications
[2023] with Paul Taku Bisong and Jason Dunlop, "Mammalian type material from Cameroon in the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin," Zoosystematics and Evolution 99(2): 503-517. https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.99.110878
[2022] with Déborah Dubald, "Introduction. Situated Nature: Field Collecting and Local Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century", Special Issue Journal for the History of Knowledge, Vol 3 (1) 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.55283/jhk.11379
[2022] “Authentic provenance”: Locality and Colonial Collecting for the Lisbon Zoological Museum, 1860s-1880s, Journal for the History of Knowledge, Vol 3 (1) 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.55283/jhk.11951.
[2022] "Purchased from a Caravan. Animal skulls tell a story" In Animals as Objects. Zoological Gardens and Natural History Museum in Berlin, 1810 to 2020. Ina Heumann and Tahani Nadim (eds.). https://doi.naturkundemuseum.berlin/data/64y2-m311/58 German version: "Von einer Karawane gekauft. Geschichten, die uns Tierschädel erzählen"
[2022] "The German-Colonial Hunting Exhibition. Displaying wild animals as colonial appropriation." In Animals as Objects. Zoological Gardens and Natural History Museum in Berlin, 1810 to 2020. Ina Heumann and Tahani Nadim (eds.). https://doi.naturkundemuseum.berlin/data/64y2-m311/74 German version: "Die Deutsch-Koloniale Jagdausstellung. Die Zurschaustellung wilder Tiere als koloniale Aneignung"
[2022] "Anchieta, José Alberto de Oliveira," in Dicionário Biográfico de Cientistas, Engenheiros e Médicos em Portugal (Lisboa: CIUHCT, 2022). https://doi.org/10.58277/EQQX9417
[2021] “A Comunidade Portuguesa de Naturalistas: museus, periódicos e redes de circulação.” In Identidade e «Missão Civilizadora», Séc. XIX, edited by Ana Carneiro, Teresa Salomé Mota, and Isabel Amaral, 3:69–89. Ciência, Tecnologia e Medicina na Construção de Portugal. Lisboa: Tinta da China, 2021.
[2019] "José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage" in Ferreira, Monteiro, and Henriques (Coords.) Dicionário Quem é Quem na Museologia Portuguesa, pp.44-46.
[2019] "Artur Ricardo Jorge" in Ferreira, Monteiro, and Henriques (Coords.) Dicionário Quem é Quem na Museologia Portuguesa, pp.154-156.
[2017] "Expert at a Distance. Barbosa du Bocage and the Production of Scientific Knowledge on Africa", HoST - Journal for the History of Science and Technology, 11, 57-74.
[2014] "O Museu Nacional de Lisboa como Centro e como Periferia", in Alice Santiago Faria, Pedro M. P. Raposo (Ed.s), Mobilidade e circulação: perspectivas em História da Ciência e da Tecnologia (Lisboa, CIUHCT/CHAM), pp.35-41. ISBN: 978-989-96231-4-9
[2012] "The Zoological Collections of the Museu de Lisboa and the Networks of Scientific Correspondence and Exchange (1858-1898)" in Antoni Roca-Rosell (ed.), The Circulation of Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the ESHS, Barcelona, 18-20 November 2010 (Barcelona: SCHCT-IEC, 2012), 928-934.
(forthcoming) with Sílvio Correa "Two “wonderful” machines: Techno-Scientific Utopia and appropriation of colonial territories in the Late Nineteenth Century."
(forthcoming) "Camões as a motto for geography. A literary hero, the periodical press, and the creation of two Geographical Societies in Portuguese Africa, 1880–1881," chapter for Edited Volume of the project “Unser Feld ist die Welt”: Geographische Gesellschaften 1821–1914 im internationalen Vergleich," edited by Ute Wardenga and Maximillian Georg, Leibniz - Institut für Länderkunde, Leipzig.
Book & exhibition reviews
[2021] "Review: Ulrike Kirchberger, Brett M. Bennett. Environments of Empire: Networks and Agents of Ecological Change. (Flows, Migrations, and Exchanges.) Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020." Isis, 112(3), 620-621.
[2019] “Review: Hugh Cagle, Assembling the Tropics (Cambridge University Press, 2018)” Isis, 2019, 110(4), 820-821.
[2015] with Ana Simões, "Review: O Laboratorio Chimico da Escola Politécnica de Lisboa. História, Colecções, Conservaçao e Musealização", Ambix, 62(3), 295–296.
[2013] with Francisco Malta Romeiras "360º Ciência Descoberta. Um Esboço Historiográfico" Brotéria 176 (2013), 281-284. [Exhibition Review]
Invited Talks
[2023] "Specimens from the Border. Scientific locality, military positions, and collection management tools," Kolloquium für Neuere Geschichte (Lehrstuhl Rebekka Habermas), Göttingen, Germany. 18.Apr.2023.
[2023] "How natural is it to find "trophies" in a mammal collection?," The Unnatural History Museum: Decolonising roundtable organized by Verity Burke. 22.Mar.2023. [online]
[2023] with Daniele Ansidei and Annie Antonites, "An Elephant from the Trenches. An interdisciplinary research project between provenance, art, and science," Science Studies Colloquium Series, ETH Zürich, Switzerland. 22.Feb.2023.
[2022] "Instruction Manuals. Between Codified Collecting and Colonial Rhetoric," Instructing Colonial Natural History Seminar Series, Uppsala University, Sweden. 26.Oct.2022. Organised by Linda Andersson Burnett and Millie Schurch. [online]
[2020] roundtable with Hugo Gonçalves Dores (CES, UCoimbra) under the topic of "Missionários, Exploradores e Império" (Missionaries, Explorers, and Empire), for the Research Seminar: Cultura, Ciência e Política em Portugal no Século XX (VIII Seminário de Investigação 2020/2021), 16 Dec.2020. Organised by Frederico Ágoas.
[2020] "Espécimes "authenticos": Uma abordagem aos estudos históricos de proveniência colonial a partir de coleções zoológicas oitocentistas" Seminário de Cultura Material e da Ciência, Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência. 23.Nov.2020. Organised by Marta C. Lourenço. [online, LINK]
[2020] "Piecing Together Nineteenth-Century Lisbon Zoological Collections Through Catalogue Lists, Specimen Tags, and Paper Slips" Cabinet of Natural History, HPS Cambridge University. Cambridge, UK. 12.Oct.2020. Organised by L. Joanne Green [online]
[2018] [10' elevator pitch] "José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823-1907)", Scientist Biographies Workshop. Delft, The Netherlands. 09.Mar.2018. Organised by Ilja Nieuwland (Huygens ING) and Abel Streefland (TU Delft).
[2017] "What's in a name? Negotiations of credibility and authority in the naming of the giant otter shrew (Potamogale velox)", Cabinet of Natural History, HPS Cambridge University. Cambridge, UK. 06.Nov.2017. Organised by Sebestian Kroupa.
[2015] "José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823-1907). Percursos de um médico pela história natural", Conferências da Secção de História da Medicina da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa. Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, Lisboa. 30.Apr.2015.
[2013] "O 'Museu do Bocage' antes do Museu Bocage", MUHNAC Seminário de Estudos de Caso em Cultura Material. Contributos Recentes para a História da Escola Politécnica, MUHNAC, Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, Universidade de Lisboa. 07.Nov.2013. Organised by Marta C. Lourenço.
Oral Presentations & Posters
[2021] "Colonial Provenances of Nature", Environment and Empire in the Museum, Manchester University and Cambridge Museum. [online]
[2020] [online talk] "'Joining hands over southern Africa.' Geographical Societies in Angola and Mozambique" Colloquium Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde, Leipzig. [online]
[2020] [tweets] "Nature in Boxes" First Twitter Conference of the British Society for the History of Science, Feb.2020. [online]
[2019] [talk] "Collecting campaigns of 'intrepid explorers' in Portuguese Africa, 1877-1882", Post Graduate Conference of the British Society for the History of Science, Cambridge University, UK. Apr.2019.
[2018] [talk] "It was of a beautiful celestial blue when it was alive", presentation at the panel Nineteenth-Century Practices of Collecting Nature, ESHS, London. Sep.2018
[2017] [talk] "Geographical Societies in Colonial Settings", World History Workshop. Cambridge, UK. 29.Sep.2017.
[2017] [talk] "A Zoologist's Political Agenda: Research on African Fauna in the late 19th century", British Society for the History of Science Post-Graduate Conference. Florence, Italy. Apr.2017.
[2016] [talk] "Appropriating Africa: taxonomic knowledge as a means of political legitimation of the Portuguese colonial agenda in the late 19th century", 7th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, University of Prague, Prague, Czech Republic. 22-24.Sep.2016.
[2016] [talk] with Sílvio Correa, "Techno-Scientific Utopia and Imperial Expansion." ICOHTEC - International Congress of the History of Technology. CIUHCT / Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal. 27-30.Jul.2016.
[2016] [talk] "Barbosa du Bocage's international network. Circulation of scientific knowledge and the building of expertise (1865-1895)." 5º Encontro Nacional de História das Ciências. Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal. 13-15.Jul.2016.
[2016] [talk] "Collectors and Collections. Connecting between the hinterland and the museum." 3º Encontro HetSci. IHC-CeHFCi, Universidade de Évora, Évora, Portugal. 14-15.Apr.2016.
[2014] [talk] "Moving Oysters. Scientific Knowledge between National Sovereignty and International Trade (1867-1895)." 6th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, CIUHCT - Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal. 4-6.Sep.2014.
[2014] [talk] "Portuguese African colonies and a new expertise between scientific knowledge and diplomatic savvy (1875-1885)." 9th STEP - Science and Technology in the European Periphery Meeting, CIUHCT – Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal. 1-3.Sep.2014.
[2014] [talk] "A questão africana entre o conhecimento científico e a experiência diplomática (1875-1885)." 4º ENHCT - Encontro Nacional de História da Ciência e da Tecnologia. Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal. 12-14.Jun.2014.
[2012] [talk] "Instruções de recolha e remessa de objetos naturais: das 'viagens philosophicas' às 'explorações scientificas.'" 3º ENHCT - Encontro Nacional de História da Ciência e da Tecnologia. Centro de Estudos de História e Filosofia da Ciência - CEHFCi, Universidade de Évora, Portugal. 26-28.Sep.2012.
[2010] [talk] "The Zoological Collections of the Museu de Lisboa and the Networks of Scientific Correspondence and Exchange (1858-1898)." 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, Societat Catalana d’Historia de la Ciència i de la Técnica, Barcelona, Spain.
[2010] [talk] with Marieke van der Duin, "Signs of Life, a Semiological Understanding of Mounted Mammals in the Natural History Museum." International Conference Sentient Creatures – Transforming biopolitics and life matters, University of Oslo, Norway.
[2009] [talk] "Colecção de modelos didácticos de história natural e anatomia comparada da Escola Politécnica (Secção de Zoologia)." I Congresso Nacional de História da Ciência, Centro Científico e Cultural de Macau, Lisboa, Portugal.
[2008] [poster] "Science through objects: a proposal for a display of historical instruments at the National Museum of Natural History, Lisbon." XVII Symposium of the Scientific Instruments Commission, Museu de Ciência da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal.
Organization of academic workshops
[2022] [paper workshop] with Ina Heumann and Katja Kaiser „Extracted Cameroon. Natural History and the Power of Collecting Sciences" an academic cooperation in the context of the project Colonial Provenances of Nature (MfN Berlin / DZK), including colleagues from the project "Reverse History of Collections. An annotated atlas of Cameroon's material heritage in German museums" (DFG / Université de Dschang / TU Berlin) and the DFG-AHRC funded project “The Restitution of Knowledge” (TU Berlin) 10-11.Nov.2022. [online]
[2022] [Roundtable] with Adrianna Link, "Digitizing and Decolonizing Collections. Challenges and Experiences ("FUTURES" Roundtable)" with fellow presenters Anita Guerrini (University of California Santa Barbara), Nuala Caomhanach (New York University / American Museum of Natural History), Elaine Ayers (New York University), Adrianna Link (American Philosophical Society), History of Science Society Conference, Chicago, 18.Nov.2022.
[2019] double panel "Collecting Histories I - National Narratives" and "Collecting Histories II - Imperial Agendas" with fellow presenters Dejan Lukic (Central European University, Budapest); Déborah Dubald (European University Institute, Florence / Universite de Lille); Laura Brassington (Cambridge University); Johanna Parker (National Centre for Indigenous Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia); Sofia Viegas (CIUHCT-UL / MHN Univ. Porto), Post-Graduate Conference of the British Society for the History of Science, HPS Cambridge University, Apr.2019.
[2018] with Déborah Dubald, panel "Nineteenth-Century Practices of Collecting Nature" with fellow presenters Marine Bellègo, Laura Brassington, Déborah Dubald, and commentator Jim Secord, for the European Society for the History of Science Conference, London, Sep.2018.
Participation in Workshops and Summer schools (with application)
[2021] The MuseumsLab cooperation platform between Europe and Africa. https://themuseumslab.org/
[2018] Universeum Pre-Conference Workshop. June 2018, Glasgow, Scotland.
[2017] Göttingen Spirit summer school: «The material culture of exploration and academic travel, 1700-1900». Panel: Imperial infrastructures and scientific travel as a collaborative endeavour, led by Bernhard C. Schär. Organised by Zentrale Kustodie der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. September 2017, Göttingen, Germany.
[2015] Ischia Biennal Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences, Ischia, Italy, July 2015. The Wellcome Trust, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, and the journal History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences.
[2010] Universitätsmuseen und -sammlungen im Hochschulalltag. Aufgaben – Konzepte – Perspektiven. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
[2009] Communicating Darwin’s Ideas: Richness and Opportunity. British Council, Wellcome Trust, University of York, UK.
[2008] NaMu – Making National Museums [Workshop 5] Re-imagining the National Museum: Traditional institutions in an Era of Technological Change, University of Leicester, UK, 16-18 June 2008.
Organization of Academic Activities
Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Humanities of Nature Colloquium 2021
MUHNAC online seminar Material Culture of Science, 2021
Peer reviewer
Museum and Society, University of Leicester. [link]
Public Understanding of Science, SAGE journals. [link]
Memberships
Founding member of Collection < > Ecologies https://collecte.hypotheses.org/
Society for the History of Natural History, SNHN.
Natural Sciences Collections Association, NatSCA.
Museums and Galleries History Group, MGHG.
History of Science Society, HSS + Co-chair of the caucus Collections, Archives, Libraries, and Museums.
British Society for the History of Science, BSHS (as student member: BSHS Ambassador at the University of Lisbon, 2017-2019).
European Society for the History of Science, ESHS.
European Society for Environmental History, ESEH.
Language proficiency
Portuguese: native speaker
English: fluent [IELTS certificate 8,5/9 (2010)]
French: advanced
German: advanced
Spanish: intermediate
Italian: intermediate
Follow me on Twitter
Follow me on Flicker