Diego Lucci

Education

• Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Naples Federico II, 2004
• M.A., Philosophy, University of Naples Federico II, 2001

Teaching Interests

• Introduction to Philosophy (PHI101)
• Ethics (PHI220)
• Modern and Contemporary Political Philosophy (PHI304)
• Philosophy of Sex and Love (PHI301 – Topics in Philosophy)
• The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (PHI301 – Topics in Philosophy)

Research Interests  

• The philosophy of the Enlightenment
• The English Enlightenment, especially deism, Newtonianism, skepticism, and anti-Trinitarianism
• The history of Anglophilia
• Religious toleration from the Reformation Era to the Age of Enlightenment
• The history of Jewish-Gentile relations, especially in the early modern period

Recent Honors     

• 2015 and 2016: Lecturer, Memorial Library – Home of the Holocaust Educators Network
• 2015: Induction as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
• 2015: Scholarship, Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies on Jewish Skepticism, University of Hamburg
• 2014: Visiting Fellowship, Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London
• 2014: Research Fellowship, Gladstone’s Library
• 2013-present: Correspondent, “The New Sommervogel Project: The Library of the Society of Jesus in the 21st Century,” Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies, Boston College
• 2013: Visiting Professorship, Department of History, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan

Selected Books (out of 6):

• (Co-edited with Ivo Cerman and Susan Reynolds), Casanova: Enlightenment Philosopher (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2016).
• (Co-edited with Wayne Hudson and Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth), Atheism and Deism Revalued: Heterodox Religious Identities in Britain, 1650-1800 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014).
• (Co-authored with Paolo Bernardini), The Jews, Instructions for Use: Four Eighteenth-Century Projects for the Emancipation of European Jews (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2012).
• (Authored) Scripture and Deism: The Biblical Criticism of the Eighteenth-Century British Deists (Bern: Lang, 2008).

Selected Journal Articles and Book Chapters (out of over 30):

• “Patristics, Priestcraft, and the Trinity in Seventeenth-Century England,” Intellectual History Review, 27 (2017), special issue on “Priestcraft: Early Modern Variations on the Theme of Sacerdotal Imposture,” forthcoming.
• “Deism, Freethinking, and Toleration in Enlightenment England,” History of European Ideas, 42 (2016), special issue on “Religious Toleration in the Age of Enlightenment,” forthcoming.
• (Co-authored with Paolo Bernardini), “Casanova on Suicide,” in Casanova: Enlightenment Philosopher, eds. Ivo Cerman, Diego Lucci and Susan Reynolds (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2016), pp. 135-155.
• (Co-authored with Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth), “‘God does not act arbitrarily, or interpose unnecessarily’: Providential Deism and the Denial of Miracles in Wollaston, Tindal, Chubb, and Morgan,” Intellectual History Review, vol. 25 (2015), no. 2, pp. 167-189.
• “American Political and Social Life in Luigi Castiglioni’s ‘Travels in the United States of North America’ (1790),” in Intermédiaires culturels – Cultural Intermediaries, eds. Vanessa Alayrac-Fielding and Ellen R. Welch (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2015), pp. 101-121.
• “Reassessing the Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England,” Cromohs: Cyber Review of Modern Historiography, vol. 19 (2014), pp. 153-164.
• “William Wollaston’s Religion of Nature,” in Atheism and Deism Revalued: Heterodox Religious Identities in Britain, 1650-1800, eds. Wayne Hudson, Diego Lucci and Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), pp.  119-138.
• “Henry Dodwell the Younger’s Attack on Christianity,” in Atheism and Deism Revalued: Heterodox Religious Identities in Britain, 1650-1800, eds. Wayne Hudson, Diego Lucci and Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), pp. 209-228.
• “The Suppression of the Jesuits and the Enlightenment Discourse of Jewish Emancipation: Two Parallel Historical Phenomena,” in The Tragic Couple: Encounters between Jews and Jesuits, eds. James Bernauer and Robert A. Maryks (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 87-102.
• “An Eighteenth-Century Skeptical Attack on Rational Theology and Positive Religion: ‘Christianity Not Founded on Argument’ by Henry Dodwell the Younger,” Intellectual History Review, vol. 23 (2013), no. 4, pp. 453-478.
• “Augustine and Deism,” in The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, 430-2000, 3 vols., ed. Karla Pollmann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), vol. 3, pp. 378-381.
• “Judaism and the Jews in the British Deists’ Attacks on Revealed Religion,” Hebraic Political Studies, vol. 3 (2008), no. 2, pp. 177-214.
• “Judaism and Natural Religion in the Philosophy of William Wollaston,” British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 30 (2007), no. 3, pp. 363-387.

Book reviews:  

• Over 40 book reviews in several journals, including, among others: Cromohs: Cyber Review of Modern Historiography; English Historical Review; History; Intellectual History Review; Locke Studies; Nuova Rivista Storica; Pensiero Politico; Rassegna Mensile di Israel; Reviews in History; Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations.

Visiting Professorships, Invited Lectures, and Conference Papers:

• USA: Boston College, Boston University, College of William and Mary, Memorial Library, University of Missouri St. Louis, Villanova University
• UK: Institute of Historical Research at the University of London, Queen’s University Belfast, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, University of Reading
• Italy (inter alia): Universities of: Bologna, Chieti-Pescara, Florence, Insubria, Milan (Catholic University), Naples (Federico II), Padua, Parma, Pisa, Verona
• Rest of Europe: Aix-Marseille University, Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Ruhr University Bochum, University of Amsterdam, University of Crete, University of Hamburg, University of Iceland, University of Navarra