Universität Wien

070353 EX Field Trip (2026S)

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 7 - Geschichte
Continuous assessment of course work

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

The preliminary meeting for the excursion will take place on Friday, 10 April, from 15:00 to 16:00 via Zoom. Please note there will be no meeting on 06.03.

History of Medicine and Health in Vienna
The excursion in Vienna is scheduled on Saturday from 18 April to 16 May
18.04 1pm-6pm Josephinum
25.04. 1pm-5pm Narrenturm
02.05. 1pm-6pm Sigm. Freud Museum
09.05. 1pm-6pm Otto-Wagna Areal (Steinhof)
16.05 1pm-6pm Karl Marx Hof

The schedule may be adjusted depending on opening hours and availability.
The cost of the excursion is approximately €50–80 per person. This includes admission fees, guided tours, and related charges. Travel costs to and from the excursion sites are not included. The faculty does not provide financial support for eligible students.

  • Friday 06.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Digital
  • Saturday 18.04. 13:15 - 18:15 Seminarraum 8, Kolingasse 14-16, OG01
  • Saturday 25.04. 13:15 - 18:15 Seminarraum 8, Kolingasse 14-16, OG01
  • Saturday 02.05. 13:15 - 18:15 Seminarraum 8, Kolingasse 14-16, OG01
  • Saturday 09.05. 13:15 - 18:15 Seminarraum 8, Kolingasse 14-16, OG01

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

This excursion introduces Vienna as a key site for understanding medicine and health by treating the city itself as an archive. Museums, collections, institutional buildings, memorial landscapes, and housing complexes are approached as historical sources. Through guided field visits, students examine how medical knowledge, expertise, and authority were produced, and how they are curated and narrated in the present. Rather than presenting medicine as a linear story of scientific progress, the course foregrounds the political and social conditions that have shaped Vienna’s medical landscape, including imperial governance, war, institutional violence and exclusion, and welfare-state ambitions. It encourages students to reflect on broader questions about medicine, the body, health, and society.

Assessment and permitted materials

Attendance is required. Active participation throughout the course, including engagement in discussion, completion of the core readings before the trips, and final essays or equivalents

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

To successfully complete the excursion course, students must fulfil the following components:
• Completion of the core seminar readings; and active participation in on-site discussions. Students are anticipated to attend all sessions. An exception may be made in the case of illness or an examination at the University of Vienna (both upon presentation of supporting documentation) (40%).
• Written assignment a 3,000-word essay. Alternative format (by arrangement): students may complete this component as a portfolio project, such as designing and presenting a small exhibition on a medical theme, or producing a short video related to the course topic. The specific format, scope, and assessment criteria will be agreed in consultation with the instructor. (60%)

Examination topics

Participation and a final essay or equivalent.

Reading list

Roy Porter, ed., The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Erna Lesky, The Vienna Medical School of the 19th Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976).
Thomas Schnalke, Diseases in Wax: The History of the Medical Moulage, trans. Kathy Spatschek (Berlin and Chicago: Quintessence Publishing, 1995).
Tatjana Buklijas, “Cultures of Death and Politics of Corpse Supply: Anatomy in Vienna, 1848–1914,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 82, no. 3 (2008): 570–607.
Ernest Jones, Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (New York: Basic Books, 1975).
Lily B. Z. L. Shaw and Robert A. Shaw, “The Pre-Anschluss Vienna School of Medicine—The Physicians: Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), Julius Wagner-Jauregg (1857–1940) and Karel Wenckebach (1864–1940),” Journal of Medical Biography 24, no. 2 (2016): 158–168.
Cheryl A. Logan, Hormones, Heredity, and Race: Spectacular Failure in Interwar Vienna (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013).
(Will be selected and provided)

Association in the course directory

SP: Neuzeit, Österreichische Geschichte, Historisch-kulturwissenschaftliche Europaforschung

BEd UF GP 03: Exkursion zu Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte (4 ECTS).

MA Geschichte (2019): PM4, Exkursion (5 ECTS).

MEd UF MA GP 02: EX Räume der historisch-politischen Auseinandersetzung (4 ECTS).

MA ID Osteuropastudien (Version 2019): PM3.1 Disziplinäre Vertiefung Osteuropäische Geschichte, 5 ECTS oder PM4, Disziplinäre Ergänzung, individuelle Vertiefung, 5 ECTS.

Last modified: Th 09.04.2026 10:45