Research with focus

Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik studied history (with a focus on Ottoman and early modern history under the guidance of Prof. Gábor Ágoston) and German language and literature at the University of Pécs (Fünfkirchen) and received her PhD in history from the University of Graz. Prior to her research and teaching activities in Graz, she was a university assistant at the Department of Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Pécs.

Her research focuses on the history of science, culture and communication of the Renaissance, the early modern period and the 18th century, geographically focusing mainly on the Ottoman territories and the Ottoman-Habsburg-Venetian contact zones in the Eastern Mediterranean and Central and Southeastern Europe. In her publications to date, special attention has been paid to the following three topics: 1) The study of the genesis and role of handwritten newspapers(avvisi), which, as repositories and mediators of knowledge, are considered one of the significant innovations of the Italian Renaissance period, and whose communication system is closely linked to that of the respublica litteraria. 2) The study of the genesis as well as the development of scientific knowledge about the Ottoman Empire, the characteristics and function of the so-called images of Turksand the memory of Turksin early modern Central and Southeastern Europe, as well as their instrumentalization in the 19th-21st centuries. 3) The role of the visual as well as of printed books in the circulation of knowledge and thus in the cultural exchange between Europe and the Ottoman Empire in the period 1450-1800.

Her monograph, which is currently being written, emerges primarily from the latter subject area: in it, she devotes herself to the history of the establishment of book printing in the Ottoman territories in the late 15th century as well as in the 16th century and, based on the lively book production, the characteristics of the book trade as well as the actors associated with it, she now shows for the first time the close interconnection of these territories as well as the reciprocal exchange processes with the centers of the Italian Renaissance. In addition, in a research project led by her and funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, she is investigating the multifaceted relations between the European Republic of Scholars and the Ottoman Empire in the Age of Enlightenment, focusing on the study of knowledge transfer and the associated networks of knowledge.

She has received research grants for her research projects, such as that of the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Habsburg Institute in Budapest, and the Collegium Hungaricum in Vienna. In addition, she held a Hertha Firnberg Junior Researcher position (funded by the FWF) and successfully recruited another externally funded project, which is currently underway and funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. She is also a recipient of the Pro Scientia Gold Medal of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and a member of the profile-building area "Dimensions of Europeanization" at the University of Graz.

Publication list

Universities under National Socialism The Relationship between Science and Politics Botany in the 19th Century

Spanish and French history Early modern history History of science, especially physical and medical history History of Sephardic Judaism History of religious tolerance

Lisa Glänzer completed a teaching degree in German and Exercise and Sport in Graz and subsequently studied the Joint Masters Program 'German Philology of the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period' in Graz and Bamberg.

Her research interests include the history of medicine and natural sciences in the 17th and 18th centuries, the specialized literature of the Artes in the Middle Ages and early modern period, and aspects of animal-human relations. Currently, Lisa Glänzer's dissertation project is devoted to the practice of comparative anatomy of animals and humans from the mid-17th to the mid-18th century, with a special focus on the changing ideas and concepts of the natural order of the world and the systematization and classification of its living beings. The aim is to contribute to the conception of animals and humans in comparative anatomy in the early modern period and the Enlightenment, as well as to autopsy as an established practice of knowledge generation, and to trace the changes in the observation, classification, and ordering of nature during the period studied in the dissertation.

Medical history of the early modern period, in particular the history of obstetrics and gynecology of the 15th and 16th centuries Vernacular literature of the early modern period in the context of "folk medicine" and "orthodox medicine" "Medical" marginalized groups of the early modern period

History of scientific institutions and disciplines especially in Austria (historical science, physics, etc.), editions of sources on this field (Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke, Ludwig Boltzmann, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Alexander Rollett, etc.).

Political Theory History of Science (Anti-Academic) Philosophy Educational Theory Media Research

Rudolf Meer studied philosophy, history and psychology at the University of Graz and Vienna. His research focuses on the history of philosophy and science of the 18th and 19th centuries with an emphasis on epistemological issues. Kant's theoretical philosophy and especially Kant's philosophy of nature form the starting point of his source-historical investigations. These concern, first, problems of the establishment and justification of scientific systems such as mechanics, chemistry, and physiological anthropology; second, questions about the status of regulative research maxims in relation to object-constitutive principles; third, the normative influence of theories on empirical research and their ethical-practical consequences.

Starting from these questions, Rudolf Meer is working on several current research projects: "Transformations of the Concept of Force in the Scientific-Theoretical Controversies of the 17th and 18th Centuries," "The Influence of Kant's Concept of Rationality on Science, Technology, and Social Institutions," "Alois Riehl's Philosophical Criticism," and "Continuity and Breaks in the Concept of Ideas from Kant to Fries."

Publication list

Chronistics in the 19th century History of historiography German philology in the 19th century Subject didactics of German/Subject didactics of history, social studies, political education

Theory and Philosophy of History Theory and History of Historical Science Hermeneutics Science Organization and Science Systematics History of Earth Sciences University History University and Science Politics

Pietro Pomponazzi's understanding of the body and soul Anatomy and medicine in the Renaissance Thanatology Burial and embalming practices

I am "Associate Professor (Professeure Agrégée)" of Early Modern Art History at Université Laval, Québec and a visiting fellow at the Center for the History of Science during the academic year 2020/2021.

My research inquires into the intersections between art, science, and literature in the early modern period and focuses on deepening our understanding of early modern art history and its chronological and geographical demarcations, paying particular attention to the Baroque as a highly innovative period that parallels our contemporary reality. My research has been funded by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Fonds de Recherche Société et Culture Québec (FQRSC), the Forschungsschwerpunkt Historische Kulturwissenschaften (Johannes Gutenberg Universitat Mainz), the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, and the Dual Career Service of the University of Graz.

My current advanced book project " Brittle Consensus : Artists, Scientists, and Poets in dialogue in seventeenth-century Florence " analyzes the complex ontology of art in the age of the scientific revolution and situates it in the multidisciplinary intellectual context of seventeenth-century Florence. While artists were still considered authorities on questions of natural philosophy during the Renaissance, they were successively displaced from this domain by the new profession of natural philosophers.Against this background, I show how artistic decisions were influenced by the discourse culture of literary academies that included among their members artists, writers, and natural philosophers (including Galileo and his students), and how artists were the first to participate productively in this new discourse on nature. The interdisciplinary framework of my book reveals the porous disciplinary boundaries of this period of upheaval and situates the discourse of art in the interstices of these different cultures.

Publication list