The Word of Science: Popularising Darwinism in Romania, 1859-1918

This dissertation explores the popularisation of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory in Romania from 1859 to 1918. Placing Darwinism in the Romanian context is important in several ways, as not only gives a picture of the interconnectedness between the political and the scientific construction of knowledge, but also reveals how cultural hegemony was formed in the European periphery. The research traces the multidirectionality of scientific ideas, highlighting its top-down and bottom up character. It focuses on the social staging of Darwinism, materially and culturally (in printed texts and institutions), politically (in ideological contests and outcomes), and scientifically (in epistemological negotiations). Finally, it explores the relationship between these historical agents. Special attention is given to science popularisation journals, pamphlets, manuals of natural history and museum artefacts in Romania, which addressed the evolutionary theory and its role for the adoption of the biological perspective in studies of ecology. To this end, the dissertation provides a detailed analysis of the social context in which scientific institutions and associations operated, exploring how Romanian naturalists acquired scientific authority, while deciding which scientific theories circulated in the public sphere. At the same time, the dissertation highlights how Darwinism was intertwined with ideas of racial, social and gender inequalities. Drawing on relevant comparisons with other countries, it reveals the development of a scientific public in Romania at the end of the nineteenth century, and the role played by popular knowledge and counterpublics in scientific debates

Holy War: The Romanian Army, Motivation, and the Holocaust, 1941-1944

This dissertation explores the motivation of Romanian soldiers in combat and committing atrocities against Romanian Jews and Soviet civilians. While there has been some investigation into the Romanian Army’s operations and its participation in the Holocaust the topic remains largely unexamined, despite Romania being the most important Nazi-allied army on the Eastern Front and the greatest independent perpetrator in the Holocaust after Nazi Germany. This dissertation argues that Romanian officers and soldiers were highly motivated in combat on the Eastern Front by nationalism, religion, anti-Semitism, and anti-communism. These things united Romanians of all classes to support a “holy war” to defend Romania from the alleged threat of “Judeo-Bolshevism.” The Romanian Army reinforced soldiers’ motivation through propaganda, coercion, and remuneration. Romanian soldiers were primarily motivated by intrinsic factors to fight, although extrinsic factors became more important to persuading soldiers to keep fighting as the war on the Eastern Front dragged on. The same factors motivated officers and soldiers to carry out atrocities, primarily against Jews, but also partisans, prisoners of war, and civilians in the Soviet Union. The Romanian Army was deeply complicit in Hitler’s war of annihilation. This dissertation fills an important gap because the current consensus, based primarily on German impressions and a highly sanitized nationalist narrative, claims that Romanian officers were Francophile, thus only reluctant allies of the Germans, and Romanian soldiers were simple peasants, therefore allegedly quickly demoralized due to insufficient motivation. Both assertions are propped up by a narrow approach focusing on the Romanian Army’s combat operations on the front line. In contrast, this dissertation examines Romanian interwar society that shaped the motivation of soldiers, while at the same time expanding the scope to include soldiers’ role in the Holocuast, to argue that the Romanian Army had much greater motivation to fight the Soviets and participate in Nazi anti-Semitic policies than previously believed. This dissertation does not forget to address the motivation of women providing military service as well as ethnic, religious, and racial minorities who fought in the Romanian Army during the Second World War

Mathematiker als Rektoren der Technischen Hochschule Dresden

Höhere Lehrerbildung und eine Mathematische Gesellschaft, beide in Dresden institutionalisiert und bewährt, sind ungewöhnlich für eine technische Bildungsstätte in den 1860er/1870er Jahren und zogen hervorragende Mathematiker und Physiker an. In dieser Tradition nahmen die fünf Ordinarien Karl Rohn, Georg Helm, Martin Krause, Walther Ludwig und Gerhard Kowalewski, die später das Rektorat der Technischen Hochschule Dresden innehatten, ihre Arbeit auf. Waltraud Voss zeigt, wie sie den gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen entsprechend Reformen mitgestalteten, sich für Neues einsetzten und dabei in Lehre und Forschung stets auf das ausgeglichene Zusammenspiel von Theorie und Praxis bedacht und bestrebt waren, die Mathematik breiteren Kreisen der Dresdner Bevölkerung näherzubringen

Naşterea şi copilăria (1955-1970)

Cluj-Napoca : Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă, 202

Wissenschaftsforschung Jahrbuch 1994/95

Peer Reviewe