Language:
German
Year of publication:
1987
Titel der Quelle:
Historische Zeitschrift
Angaben zur Quelle:
245,2 (1987) 315-342
Keywords:
Jewish scientists History 1800-1933
;
Jews History 1800-2000
;
Antisemitism History 1871-1918
;
Antisemitism History 1918-1933
Abstract:
The 1987 article focuses on a group of 40 exceptionally successful Jewish scientists. In general, they seem to have come from a prosperous environment and did not need success in science to climb the social ladder, but only perhaps to integrate more fully into non-Jewish society. Although the academic establishment permitted them to study at the leading institutions, their professional careers were often blocked by antisemitism. This pushed them to what seemed at the time to be marginal scientific subdisciplines and to universities on the periphery. It is argued that precisely their position on the margin/frontier - both geographically and in terms of their specialization - made it possible for them to conduct original research and achieve significant scientific breakthroughs. The 1997 article considers the shortcomings of the first, especially its failure to include a "control group" of non-Jewish scientists, and its comparison of the most outstanding Jewish scientists with the mass of regular academic personnel. Accordingly, it compares 12 successful Jews with 12 equally successful non-Jews. The results show the need to qualify some of the conclusions of the earlier article. Inter alia, it confirms that discrimination clearly made life more difficult for the Jews than for the non-Jews. As a result, the Jews usually found themselves in positions of lesser prestige and lesser academic power than their non-Jewish colleagues.
Note:
Appeared as "Soziale Ursachen des jüdischen Erfolgs in der Wissenschaft" in her "Jüdisches Leben und Antisemitismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert" (1990) 146-165, and in its second edition "Antisemitismus als kultureller Code" (2000). A critique by Volkov of her 1987 article appeared in German as "Juden als wissenschaftliche 'Mandarine' im Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer Republik; neue Überlegungen zu sozialen Ursachen des Erfolgs jüdischer Naturwissenschaftler" in "Archiv für Sozialgeschichte" 37 (1997) 1-18, and in her "Das jüdische Projekt der Moderne" (2001). An English version of the 1987 article appeared as "The social origins of success in science; Jews in 19th century Germany" in the "Jahrbuch des Instituts für Deutsche Geschichte. Beiheft" 10 (1985). An English translation of the 1987 article combined with the 1997 article appeared as "Jewish scientists in Imperial Germany" in "Aleph" 1 (2001) 215-281.
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