Constantina (Dina) BACALEXI
Current position: senior research engineer at the “Centre Jean-Pépin” UMR8230, a joint research unit (CNRS – the French National Centre of Scientific Research – and École Normale Supérieure of Paris). I am a classicist, specialized in Greek studies. Research themes: Greek tragedy (my 1993 PhD: “The concept of nobility in the tragedies of Euripides”), mainly “self sacrifice” in Euripides; digital humanities; open science (UNESCO expert on Open science 2019-2021); and history of medicine, focusing on Greek medicine, especially Galen, including his reception in the Renaissance, and the humanistic viewpoint on the Arabic Medieval period. Since 2014, I have been participating in the annual conferences of the international and interdisciplinary research group “Scientiae: disciplines of knowing” (https://scientiae.uk/), which deals with Renaissance and early modern studies in history and philosophy of science.
Since 2018: editor in chief of the BUDE database (Base Unique de Documentation Encyclopédique https://bude.univ-tours.fr./php/search.php), which deals with text transmission from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance, up to the middle of the 17th cent. BUDE is part of the European network Europa Humanistica.
2002-2014: member of the editorial board of L’Année Philologique, the reference international bibliographic database on Greek and Roman Antiquity, co-director in charge of its international coordination.
Since 2014: collaboration with Mehrnaz Katouzian-Safadi (SPHERE-UMR 7219/CNRS and University Denis-Diderot), who specializes in Medieval Arabic and Persian medical texts, mainly in the pharmacological works of the physician and philosopher Rhazes (865-925), a prominent reader of Galen. Our aim is to compare the “Oriental” reception of Galen (and the Greek medicine in general) with the “Occidental”, the Renaissance one. I presented our results in the Scientiae conferences 2015-2023.
April 2022: I was invited to give a talk on “Reception of the Greek medicine in the Renaissance and view on the Medieval past: textual and cultural issues” in the international seminar of History of medicine organized by Translitterae (École Universitaire de Recherche, University Paris Sciences et Lettres [PSL]).
November 2022: I launched a project on the formation of humanistic networks (15th-17th cent.) thanks to book circulation. Its aim is to study some physicians’ libraries (especially less known ones) through possession marks (ex libris and marginalia) and paratexts (dedicatory epistles, addresses to the reader, prefaces etc.).
I was invited to the international workshop “Open science, a landscape under construction with a horizon of possibilities”, organized by CIEM (Centro Internacional de Encuentros Matemáticos) and CNRS in Castro Urdiales, Cantabria (Spain), November 11-13 2022. I chaired the session “Open Science policy”.
July 2023: As an elected member of the International Secretariat of the World Federation of Scientific Workers/Fédération mondiale des travailleurs scientifiques (WFSW-FMTS), an international scientific NGO in official partnership with UNESCO, I coordinated the symposium “Scientific cooperation as driver for peace and sustainable development”, a side event of the 94th Executive Council meeting of WFSW, held in Évora (Portugal). I gave a talk entitled “Scientific diplomacy: moving forward together to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals”.
Teaching experience (2014-2020): Greek medicine and its reception, focusing on the continuum between Antiquity, Middle Ages (especially the Byzantine period and the “Oriental” world) and Renaissance. In 2019-2020, I was in charge of the pedagogical coordination of a History of Science course at the University Denis-Diderot (Paris 7). I chaired two PhD committees on history of zoology and history of medicine in 2018 and 2019 (University Denis-Diderot), and have been a member of a PhD committee on Greek tragedy in 2018 (University Rennes2).
2012-2021: I have been an elected member of the National Committee of Scientific Research (Comité national de la recherche scientifique), a body in charge of evaluation, expertise and prospective disciplinary and interdisciplinary studies.
Since 2021: I am an elected member of the central governing body (Conseil d’administration) of CNRS.
A list of my works can be found in this repository: https://hal.science/search/index/?q=authFullName_t%3Adina+bacalexi&rows=30&authIdPerson_i=11975
