Page - 119 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848β1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space
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Chapter 3 β¦β 119
From the faculty proposal to Franz Josephβs signature, many things
could change. Below I go into more detail about how agreement on the
scholar to be appointed was reached, how his position (full or associate
professorship) was determined, and even how his disciplinary designation
could affect things. The legal road was complex, and many factors could
influence the final outcome. However, since politicians gradually accepted
that universities were not a political body any more, they rarely interfered
with the nominations. They did so mostly in a few special disciplines that
were still considered vital for provincial and state policies.
This depoliticization went hand in hand with another process, namely,
the professionalization of university teachers. As I argue below, from the
1870s Habsburg scholars began to have stable careers, beginning with
the achievement of habilitation and ending, if they were successful, in a
professorship. This, of course, did not mean that a Privatdozent would go
all the way up the ladder, but if a scholar wanted to be successful, certain
steps at the right time would facilitate this. Professionalization had two se-
rious repercussions. First, even renowned scholars from outside of academia
had limited access to professorships if they had not habilitated. Second,
professionalization strengthened linguistic boundaries because the system
of rewards was bound to the language of publications. Scholars habilitat-
ing at a Habsburg university had to apply with a special publication, the
Habilitationsschrift (habilitation thesis). This was a book in the humanities
and a serious research article in the natural sciences and medicine, written
in the main teaching language of the institution the scholar intended to
habilitate at. While exceptions can be found, this increased the pressure on
scholars to choose early on which language they would publish in, which
affected their choice of career.
Habilitation between Professionalization and Patronage
With the growing autonomy of the universities, the critical issue for a
Habsburg scholar was the conditions of entry into universities, regulated
by the laws on habilitation. It is striking that although competition for pro-
motions within a given faculty was certainly fierce, career advancement
(including a change of university) was rather a question of mediation, stra-
tegic presentation of oneβs knowledge and, of course, personal connections,
although certain factors, such as a scholarβs religious denomination, impeded
back to the
book Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848β1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space"
Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848β1918
A Social History of a Multilingual Space
- Title
- Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848β1918
- Subtitle
- A Social History of a Multilingual Space
- Author
- Jan Surman
- Publisher
- Purdue University Press
- Location
- West Lafayette
- Date
- 2019
- Language
- English
- License
- PD
- ISBN
- 978-1-55753-861-1
- Size
- 16.5 x 25.0 cm
- Pages
- 474
- Keywords
- History, Austria, Eduction System, Learning
- Categories
- Geschichte Vor 1918
Table of contents
- List of Illustrations vi
- List of Tables vii
- Acknowledgments ix
- Note on Language Use, Terminology, and Geography xi
- Abbreviations xiii
- Introduction A Biography of the Academic Space 1
- Chapter 1 Centralizing Science for the Empire 19
- Chapter 2 The Neoabsolutist Search for a Unified Space 49
- Chapterr 3 Living Out Academic Autonomy 89
- Chapter 4 German-Language Universities between Austrian and German Space 139
- Chapter 5 Habsburg Slavs and Their Spaces 175
- Chapter 6 Imperial Space and Its Identities 217
- Chapter 7 Habsburg Legacies 243
- Conclusion Paradoxes of the Central European Academic Space 267
- Appendix 1 Disciplines of Habilitation at Austrian Universities 281
- Appendix 2 Databases of Scholars at Cisleithanian Universities 285
- Notes 287
- Bibliography 383
- Index 445