Princeton

In September 1995, My family and I found ourselves in the university town of Princeton. The previous year we had once again lived in Cambridge, where the thought of expanding my horizons beyond Helsinki and Cambridge had occurred to me. I decided to apply to the presigious Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. To my great surprise, my application was successful.

The Institute for Advanced Studies is famous for its physicists and mathematicians, such as Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Kurt Gödel. However, the institute is also known for its historians, among whom the likes of Erwin Panofsky and George Kennan are numbered.

The atmosphere and working conditions couldn’t have been better. There are no kinds of research programmes at the Institute, let alone, so-called key projects. The idea is to give scholars the greatest possible freedom to follow their intellectual curiosity.

Numerous conversations with Albert O. Hirschman and many other scholars and participation in the seminars of Glifford Geertz were important learning experiences for me as a young researcher. The Institute was also an ideal place for life with small children. The Institute’s wood, the idyllic setting of Princeton and New York just a train journey away offered limitless possibilities for excursions and adventures.

By Written by Markku Peltonen (Suvi Uotinen ed.), translated by Matthew Billington

Markku Peltonen

Markku Aimo Olavi Peltonen
Born December 9, 1957 Helsinki

Master of Arts 1984, Licentiate 1988 and PhD 1992 (general History), University of Helsinki

Academy Professor 2014–18
Principle Investigator of the Academy of Finland research project Participatory Politics and State Formation in Early-Modern England: Monarchy, the Public and Democratic Distrust
Professor of general history 2009–, University of Helsinki (leave of absence 2014–18)
Professor of intellectual history 2007–09, University of Helsinki

Publications, research projects and other academic activity

Research themes: early modern intellectual and cultural history, particularly political thought, the history of politeness and manners and the development of natural philosophy in the early modern era.

Photo: Linda Tammisto / Helsingin yliopisto
Written by Markku Peltonen (Suvi Uotinen, ed.)
Translated by Matthew Billington