Biography

Marcelo Figueroa graduated in History at Tucumán State University, Argentina. Between 1996-1998 he was Teaching Fellow at the Department of Modern History and the University Basic Cycle. From 2000 to the present he has been Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, Modern History Area. In 2002-2003 he did his doctoral courses at Pablo de Olavide University, Seville-Spain, and in 2004-2007 he was a scholar in this institution and obtained his Ph.D. cum laude.
His current research studies are in the Cultural History of Knowledge in the eighteenth century Spanish world, in particular the scientific transfers of natural objects and useful knowledge between the Spanish crown and their American possessions. In his thesis, entitled “Things” of River Plate: Natural history and colonial administration in Spain in the late eighteenth century”, he studied the bureaucratic and scientific mechanisms adopted by the metropolitan secretaries to collect information from the colonies. Consequently, his research shows the importance of the overseas agents and the colonial institutions in the production of metropolitan knowledge in this area. For this reason his actual investigations are oriented towards the study of the implicit collaboration of American creoles and indigenous peoples with the academies of Europe.
Marcelo Figueroa obtained fellowships and grants from diverse bodies: Pablo de Olavide University; The Roberto Cortés Conde Found; Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland; Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Spain; American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies-UCLA; etc. Furthermore his papers have appeared in several Argentinean and foreign books and reviews. He has taught courses and offered courses and conferences in Argentina and Spain. During 2008 he is going to dictate a special course entitled “Modes of “mobility”, 16th-18th c.: From travel literature to travel as practice”.