Tatiana Barkovskiy

by Rodrigo Ballon Villanueva

Tatiana Barkovskiy

With 2024 about to finish, we are happy to introduce you to Tatiana Barkovskiy!

Tatiana began her academic career at the University of Warsaw (Poland), where she obtained a BA in French Studies (2021), a BA in Philosophy (2021), and an MA in Philosophy (2023). During the last year of her MA, Tatiana was a Research Associate at the Ian Ramsey Centre, Oxford (UK), and a Recognised Visiting Scholar at Columbia University (US).

Currently, Tatiana is a PhD student in Philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge (UK). She is working on a dissertation titled “Demystifying Medieval Female ‘Mystics’: Thirteenth-Century Women Philosophers” under the supervision of John Marenbon. From July 2024 to July 2026, she concurrently holds a visiting studentship at the Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp (Belgium). Her goal is to highlight the philosophical dimensions of the works written by so-called medieval female ‘mystics’, arguing for their inclusion in the canon after being largely overlooked by historians of philosophy. For this, Tatiana pays special attention to the epistemology, metaphysics and ethics of authors such as Marguerite Porete, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Hadewijch of Brabant, Beatrice of Nazareth, Angela of Foligno, among others.
For her work, Tatiana has received several awards. Most recently, she was the runner-up for the 2023 Graduate Essay Prize awarded by the British Society for the History of Philosophy, with a paper titled “Marguerite Porete on Reason, Intellect, and the Epistemically Transformative Power of Love”.

Although Tatiana’s primary research focuses on medieval women thinkers, she is interested in the broader history of women philosophers, feminist epistemology, the concepts of mysticism or ‘mystical thinking’ in philosophy, metaphilosophy, and new historiographies of philosophy.
Tatiana is very passionate about languages. In addition to Polish, Russian, and English, she speaks French and has some notions of Spanish and Italian. Furthermore, she is currently learning German and Dutch (in modern and medieval forms), which will be valuable for her current research.Tatiana has many projects in the pipeline, including forthcoming publications, so if you want to keep posted about her work, make sure to visit her personal website!