He Li

He Li is a scholar of the history of ideas who focuses on the intersection between philosophy, theology, and visual art and aesthetics in the pre-modern period. His project as a postdoctoral fellow at Beckman Center investigates the relationship between alchemy, astrology, and the visual depiction of the metaphysical form in the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, concentrating on theories of art and nature in Albertus Magnus and his predecessors and successors. His goal is to shed light on how the frameworks within the proto-chemical and proto-scientific disciplines influenced the aesthetic lens through which thinkers and artists of the periods interpreted the visible world, a lens that often seems foreign and mystifying to the modern eye.

He received his PhD in religious studies from Duke University after writing his dissertation entitled Without Form, the Intellect Cannot Judge and the Eye Cannot Comprehend: Philosophy, Theology, and the Artistic Method of Piero della Francesca. He has publications slated for peer-reviewed journals in medieval studies and religious studies.