Academic History
Born in Krefeld, a town in the Lower Rhine area, I moved on to Bonn for my studies in medicine, history, classics and musicology and later to Münster, Wolfenbüttel, Princeton and Paris for work. I finished my doctorate on the tradition of the Hippocratic letters (published by Brill as Demokrit – lachender Philosoph und sanguinischer Melancholiker in 1992) and proceeded to write my “Habilitation” on the history of the Hippocratic Oath: ‘Geschichten vom hippokratischen Eid’ (a rewritten and augmented version of this book was printed in the form of a CD-ROM in 2007).
Newcastle Director of the Northern Centre for the History of Medicine; Reader in the History of Medicine; Member of the NIASSH Steering Group; Ethics Convenor, School of Historical Studies; Member of the School's Research Committee; Member of Board of Studies in History and Classics; personal tutor; DPD for the MA programme in the history of medicine (until Jan. 2011)
Licenced physician; PhD in the History of Medicine; Habilitation in the History and Theory of Medicine
University of Münster, Institute for the Theory and History of Medicine (1990-1994; since 1995 as Privatdozent)
Herzog August Library (HAB) in Wolfenbüttel (1994-1997)
Institute for Advanced Study, School of Historical Studies (1999-2000)
University of Paris VII (Denis Diderot), REHSEIS (2001-2002)
External Review Panel of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ (2008-)
Wellcome Trust History of Medicine Funding Committee (2006- )
Scientific Committee of the Davos Literature and Medicine Festival (2000- )
Editorial Board of "Studien zur Geschichte der Medizingeschichte und Medizingeschichtsschreibung" (a book series published by Gardez! Verlag (2004- )
External referee of membership applications to the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2008- )
Referee of nomination for the MacArthur fellowship programme Wellcome Trust Strategic Award jointly held with colleagues from Newcastle and Durham (2007-2012)
Wellcome Trust University Award (2002-2007)
Honorary lecturer in the History of Medicine at Newcastle University appointed by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in London (2003- )
and member of the Society's examination committee for the Diploma in the History of Medicine (2011-)
Coopted to the Scientific Committee of the Davos Literature Festival (2000- )
Fulbright Scholarship (1999-2000)
Award of the Stiftung Lehre (a teaching award) at Münster University (1997)
University Prize Münster (1992)
German, English, French, Italian (active)
Spanish, Latin, Greek (passive)
Over the last 20 years, I have developed research specialisms in Classical medicine, particularly Hippocratic medicine (and the history of its reception up until the 20th century), Renaissance and Early Modern medicine, and 20th-century medicine, most notably in the history of Hippocratism(s), melancholy, the discipline of Medical History, as well as in the representations of medicine in fiction and works of fine art. In terms of methodology, I am particularly interested in issues relating to the history of ideas, the theory of reception, narratology, iconography, and historiography. Most of my publications revolve around the history of the Hippocratic Oath, the history of the Hippocratic Letters, the history of melancholy, German Medical History’s National Socialist entanglements, emigration studies, and the work of Thomas Mann.
I am a licenced physician and a translator of English/American novels into German including those by Pauline Melville, Hanif Kureishi, and Dave Eggers. I also co-translated the award winning book "The Spirit catches you and you Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman into German. I was fortunate to spend some time at the Europäisches Übersetzer-Kollegium" in Straelen.
Book projects:
Hippocrates commentaries authored and printed between 1530 and 1650
Frank, Erich. Aristotle's Testimony on Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. Manuscript completed and edited by Emma and Ludwig Edelstein between 1949 and 1965 on the basis of Frank's papers. Prepared for publication by Thomas Rütten and Peter Singer on the basis of galley proofs recently rediscovered in the archive of the American Philosophical Society. With a Postscript by Walter Burkert. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society
Thomas Mann and Medicine
Correspondence between Karl Sudhoff and Tibor v. Győry (annotated edition)
Director of the Newcastle branch of the Northern Centre for the History of Medicine; Co-PI for the Wellcome Strategic Award jointly held with colleagues from Newcastle and Durham Universities within the Northern Centre for the History of Medicine(2007-12)
Current PhD projects:
I am currently supervising Sonja Lapraik’s and Natalie Hawkes' Wellcome funded PhD projects. Sonja is writing on representations of Hippocrates at the Urbino court of Federico da Montefeltro, Natalie is writing on medicine at the court of Louis XIV. I am also supervising Brianne Preston's PhD in classical medicine.
Completed PhD projects:
Anne Kristin Oommen-Halbach, Briefe von Walter von Brunn (1876-1952) an Tibor Győry (1869-1938) aus den Jahren 1924-1937 (summa cum laude); published: (Remscheid: Gardez, 2004) (= Studien zur Geschichte der Medizingeschichte und Medizingeschichtsschreibung, vol. 1) (first supervisor)
Karin Geiger, Der diagnostische Blick - Martin Gumpert als Arzt, Medizinhistoriker und ärztlicher Schriftsteller (magna cum laude); published: (Remscheid: Gardez, 2004) (= Studien zur Geschichte der Medizingeschichte und Medizingeschichtsschreibung, vol. 2) (first supervisor)
Nadine Metzger, Pre-modern Histories of Lycanthropy and Ephialtes (first supervisor; submitted and accepted for publication)
Maithe Hulskamp, Sleep and Dreams in Ancient Medical Diagnosis and Prognosis (2008) (second supervisor)
MA students (first supervision only):
Sonja Lapraik (2005); Todd Curtis (2005); Ellen Tullo (2006); Frances Warnell (2006); Joanna Brown (2006); Julia Barth (2006); Estelle Clements (2007); Paul C. Ashwood (2007); Jill Stewart (2007); Natalie Hawkes (2008); James Urquhart (2008); Heather Traynor (2008); Ami Watanabe (2009); Elizabeth Clayton (2010)
Referee of research grant/membership applications for the Institute for Advanced Study, the Wellcome Trust, the Italian Ministry for Education University and Research (MIUR), the Herzog August Library, the Wingate Foundation.
Referee of submitted articles/manuscripts for Oxford University Press, the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Early Science and Medicine, Medical History, Social History of Medicine, Journal of Hellenic Studies, Intellectual History Review, Medizinhistorisches Journal, Society, Biology and Human Affairs.
Referee of nomination for the MacArthur fellowship programme.
Keynote lecture at the International Health Conference: Recent Advances in Clinical Medicine, Public Health and Health Policy organised by the Royal College of Physicians and the London School of Economics and Political Science in September 2007 in Athens.
Invitations to lecture at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, at Yale University, the Royal Society of Medicine in London, the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, the Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani in Venice, the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, the Fondation Hardt in Vandoeuvres-Geneva, the Nederlands Institute for Advanced Study in Wassenaar, the International Hippocratic Foundation at Kos, the Universities of Urbana/Illinois, Phoenix/Arizona, Kingston/Ontario, London/Ontario, Paris VII, Bern, Bonn, Bristol, Düsseldorf, Durham, Freiburg, Giessen, Greifswald, Lampeter, Leiden, Lille, Mainz, Münster, München (TU and LMU), Newcastle, Nijmegen, Oxford Brookes, Regensburg, Witten/Herdecke; at hospitals in Berlin (Jüdisches Krankenhaus), Bethel (Epilepsie-Zentrum), Carlisle (Cumberland Infirmary), Newcastle (General Hospital, RVI), New York (Mount Sinai), Osnabrück (Kinderhospital); at the Buddenbrookhaus in Lübeck.
Invitations to contribute to international collaborative projects:
1. Catalogus translationum et commentariorum ('Hippocrates') with Danielle Jacquart (Paris) and Manuel E. Vázquez Buján (Santiago de Compostela) (1997- )
2. Leibniz and medicine. Critical edition of 3000 pages on medicine and related topics written by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz under the auspices of the Berlin Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaft (Prof. Knobloch), the Académie des Sciences (Prof. Debru) and the Russian Academy of Science (2001- )
3. Diseases of the Imagination and Imaginary Disease in the Early Modern Period. International research project led by Prof. Yasmin Haskell (University of Western Australia) and funded by the Australian Research Council; with contributions from Jeremy Schmidt (Victoria), Angus Gowland (UCL), Koen Vermeir (Leuven), Monica Calabritto (CUNY), Elizabeth Mellyn (Harvard), David Konstan (Brown), Helen King (Reading), Guido Giglioni (Warburg), Christopher Allen (Sydney) (2007- )
4. Il Rinascimento italiano e l' Europa. Le scienze. International project on Renaissance science and medicine funded by the Cassamarca Foundation and led by Antonio Clericuzio (Rome) and Germana Ernst (Rome) (completed in 2008)
Wellcome Strategic Award (£123.000 = 1/3 of c. £370.000) 2007-12
Loeb Classical Library Foundation ($ 7000) 2007-2008
Wellcome University Award (£165.000) 2002-2007
Herzog August Library, Wolfenbuettel (£20.000) 2000-02
Maison de Sciences de l’Homme, Paris (c. £3000) 2001
Fulbright Commission, U.S. (c. £3000) 1999-00
Hannah Foundation, Canada (c. £2500) 1998
Swiss Thomas Mann Society (c. £2000) 1998
Hungarian Academy of the Sciences (c. £2500) 1996
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (c. £15.000) 1993-94
Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani, Venice (c. £3500) 1993
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (c. £30.000) 1991-93
Smaller Grants from the Raymond Klibansky Endowment to the Department of Philosophy at Heidelberg University, Robert Bosch Stiftung in Stuttgart, the Europäisches Übersetzer-Kollegium in Straelen, the Friends of the University of Münster in Westfalen etc.
Sponsor of:
2 Wellcome Trust PhD awards (total value c. £150.000) (2006/2008-2009/2011)
CAC2045 (module leader)
CAC3045 (module leader)
HIS3050 (team-taught)
SHS8124 (Module leader)
SHS8125
HIS8061 (team-taught)
Dr Rütten will be on research leave in semester 2.