Michael Hagner, ETH Zurich - Swiss Federal Instiute of Technology
Program in History of Science and the Department of German, Princeton University
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Place: East Pyne Building, Rm 010
Note: There is no pre-circulated paper for this talk.
Abstract. This lecture deals with an influential criminal case that took place in Germany in the early 20th century. A law student from the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin, who had been engaged by the director of the Deutsche Bank to tutor his sons, was accused in the death of one of his two charges. The autopsy of the corpse showed multiple signs of bodily mistreatment. The tutor was arrested, and the subsequent trial was one of the most spectacular in Wilhelmine Germany. The lecture will briefly reconstruct this case and then analyze in greater detail the controversial discussion it provoked in criminology, pedagogy, psychiatry, and among the general public. In sexual science, this case led to the invention of a new pathological category – "dippoldism", from the name of the tutor, Andreas Dippold – designating sexual arousal from applying corporal punishment to children. Before this case became canonical as a subcategory of sadism, it underwent several transformations, which gave evidence of its complexity. The topic is highly relevant to current debates and demonstrates how the different and interwoven layers of complex cases in the history of science can only be adequately dealt with by an approach that spans several different disciplines.
This event is co-sponsored by the Eberhard L. Faber 1915 Memorial Fund in the Humanities Council, the Department of German and the Program in History of Science at Princeton University.