Page - 120 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

120 ♦  Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 it. In contrast, the rejection of a habilitation by the faculty or the ministry was seen as denying a scholar’s academic competence and thus any possibility for a university career. Reactions to such rejections were often very emotional. They could result in a quiet ending to a scholar’s career131 or prolonged confrontations in the press and courts.132 In problematic cases, a rejection could be contested with appeals to the faculty or directly to the ministry, or even by trying one’s luck at a different university, although the latter was rare and undertaken only in cases of obvious personal or political conflict at the first university. In the appeal procedures, both sides often turned to external experts for an assessment.133 Since the Ordinarienuniversität pro- moted strong teacher-student relations, some professors felt offended by the rejection of a habilitation and took the side of their students.134 A “strong tie” in the student-teacher relationship was in fact a prerequi- site for habilitation, especially because the social capital within the faculty was mostly concentrated in a few hands, as Pavel Kolář has demonstrated for the historical disciplines.135 Nonetheless, habilitation involved all of the professors in the faculty, first on the commission and then in the examina- tion and public lectures. Thus, “weak ties” to all professors, or rather the absence of “negative ties”136 with other scholars, to retain the terminology of network theory, were significant. The habilitation of Władysław Natanson in Graz was, for example, supported by Ludwig Boltzmann; given the lat- ter’s uncertain health as well as his possible move to Munich, the young scholar corresponded with the Graz sociologist Ludwik Gumplowicz about choosing the best moment for filing the papers. Natanson failed to answer questions on Kelvin’s theory of vortex motion (Wirbelbewegung), and both he and Gumplowicz accused the questioner, Heinrich Streintz, of German nationalism and fear of competition.137 In this regard, professors were in a privileged position, especially the chairs of seminars and clinics, who controlled the resources a Privatdozent would need in teaching. Conflict with the head of the Institute for Physiology (Physiologisches Institut) in Vienna, Hermann Widerhofer, caused the Privatdozentur of Leopold Unger to be terminated: he had written an arti- cle on the misery of the Privatdozenten in Vienna, which provoked a harsh reaction from Widerhofer, who had been directly criticized in the piece. Even though the majority of the faculty stood behind Unger, Widerhofer succeeded in having him dismissed. The young physiologist continued his career, how- ever, habilitating once more as soon as Widerhofer retired in 1901.138 Heads of institutes were also legally allowed to refuse a Privatdozent the use of teaching aids, which would have effectively ended a career before