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DFG-Centre for Advanced Studies Imaginaria of Force

Photo: Creative Commons/YaYapas

Dr. Sergius Kodera

 

Curriculum

Sergius Kodera received his Doctorate in 1994. Since then, Kodera has been teaching Early Modern and Renaissance Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna. Habilitation in 2004. Fellowships in London (Warburg Institute), Vienna (IFK), New York (Columbia) Berlin (FU). Kodera has published on and/or is a translator of authors such as Marsilio Ficino, Machiavelli, Leone Ebreo, Girolamo Cardano, Giovan Battista della Porta, Giordano Bruno, Francis Bacon and Kenelm Digby. His main fields of interest are the history of the body and sexuality, magic, media, the art of memory, early modern theatre, and concepts of urban space in trans-disciplinary perspectives. Currently he is working on a book-length study on Della Porta in English.

Publications (selection)

  • Das abjekte Bild. Affektive Bildlichkeit zwischen den Medien in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. by Anita Traninger and Sergius Kodera. Brill: Poesis (to be published June 2026)
  • „Giovan Battista Della Portas (1535–1615) Taumatologia: Das Testament eines frühneuzeitlichen Ingenieurs, Magiers, Physiognomen.“ Daphnis, 53 (2025), pp. 404–429. https://doi.org/10.1163/18796583-05203026.
  • Nahkampf und Fernheilung. Sir Kenelm Digbys sympathisches Pulver zwischen Paracelsischer Medizin, adeligem Duell und literarischer Fiktion. Hannover: Wehrhahn, 2021.
  • Iconology. Neoplatonism and Art in the Renaissance. Perspectives and Contexts of a Controversial Alliance, ed. by Berthold Hub and Sergius Kodera. New York and London: Routledge, 2020.
  • Disreputable Bodies. Magic, Gender, and Medicine in Renaissance Natural Philosophy. Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto CRRS, 2010.

Research project: Dream Images: on the Psychology of the Weak Image in the 16th Century

Based on the synthesis of (Neo-)Platonism developed by Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), my project deals with the etiology and the powers of dreams in the early modern period: Drawing on Plato and Synesius, Ficino formulated an influential theory according to which dream images represent the effects of the influence of the stars on the human psyche. The project examines the ramifications of Ficino’s ideas in texts by influential 16th-century authors: Pietro Pomponazzi (1462–1524), Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501–1578), Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576), Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), and Giovan Battista della Porta (1535–1615). Thereby, the project addresses the underlying assumptions in the context of the effects of weak forces: firstly in connection with the power of dream images; secondly in connection with the idea that initially imperceptible forces foster visible organic growth; thirdly in connection with medical (mostly pharmacological) attempts to influence these weak forces; and fourthly, it aims to make a claim about how these theorems belong to prehistory of G. W. Leibniz's doctrine of petites perceptions, and hence become prolegomena to the theories of Christian Wolff (1679–1754) and Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841), which were formative for dream theories during the 20th century.