research

My main areas of expertise are the history of Brazilian historiography and the epistemology of historiography. As I understand them, the history of historiography and the philosophy of history are deeply connected. On the one hand, normative concerns about historical knowledge must be able to account for the various kinds of history in which historians are interested. On the other, the history of historiography is at its best when it shows us the limits and the conditions of possibility of what we could know about the past in any given historical context.

I also created and maintain the Digital Catalog for History Theses and Dissertations defended in Brazil between 1942 and 2000.

current projects

a social epistemology of historiography: trust and historical knowledge

Most if not all contemporary scientific and scholarly disciplines depend on trust. As we come to know more widely and more deeply about the world, our relations to it, and our relations among ourselves, an intellectual division of labor has become inevitable. In such a context, researchers from many different areas must trust the work of others if they want to be able to contribute to their disciplines. Professional historiography is no exception. In this project, I investigate the role of trust in the domain of professional historiography to better understand how it functions as well as the consequences of such epistemic dependence in a world of specialized scholarly research.

Contemporary historians still do much individual work. When opening boxes in the archives, or when reading and taking notes, they might still resemble their 19th-century predecessors, who liked to portray themselves as solitary explorers. However, as the discipline has grown in both size and complexity, they find themselves increasingly dependent on the work of others to be able to interpret the materials they gathered in ways that are considered to be interesting, innovative, relevant, or original. They also need the work of others to be able to (re)construct the contexts relevant to this interpretation. No single historian can know well enough all the material and secondary literature relevant to a given historical question, so they might as well trust that their colleagues did a good enough job on their own. How do historians navigate these complex interactions?

digital catalog for history theses and dissertations

The Digital Catalog for History Theses and Dissertations compiles information about all History MA and PhD theses defended in Brazil between 1942 and 2000. It has been invaluable in supporting researchers interested in the history of Brazilian historiography as well as those who want to explore older material of their chosen historical specialty.

The back-end runs with Django, a versatile framework for Python web development, and a MySQL database. I have personally developed and maintained the website since its launching in 2019.