Sophie Pia Stieger is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Chair of Educational History and Educational Policy Analysis. In her research, Stieger examines the intersections of educational history, religious history, and disciplinary history from a historical-deconstructive perspective, specifically focusing on debates about the soul and the emergence of psychology in Germany and France since the long 18th century.
Further Research Interests include: The History of Science, the History of Philosophy, Enlightenment Studies, and the Ideological and Historical Foundations of Education as a Discipline.
Academic Resume and Activities
- Since 2025: Postdoctoral Researcher at the Chair of Educational History and Educational Policy Analysis, Prof. Dr. Christian Ydesen, University of Zurich
- 2024-2025: Assistant at the Chair of Educational History and Educational Policy Analysis, Prof. Dr. Christian Ydesen, University of Zurich
- 2022-2024: Representative of the academic mid-level staff at the Faculty Conference of the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Science, University of Vienna
- 2022: Research stay at the Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, California
- 2020-2022: External Lecturer at the Faculty of Educational Science, University of Bielefeld
- 2019-2024: Assistant (Pre-Doc) at the Chair of General Educational Science, Prof. Dr. Daniel Tröhler, Institute of Educational Science, University of Vienna
- 2019: External Lecturer at the Institute of Educational Science, University of Vienna
- 2019-2024: Doctoral studies in Educational Science, University of Vienna
- 2015-2018: Master's studies in Educational Science, University of Vienna
- 2016-2018: Tutor in various courses at the Institute of Educational Science and the Institute of Philosophy, University of Vienna
- 2011-2015: Bachelor's studies in Educational Science, University of Vienna
Publications
Stieger, Sophie Pia (2025, forthcoming). “The Soul” In: Tröhler, D./Myrebøe, S. (Eds.): Handbook on Education History, Philosophy and Theory. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Stieger, Sophie Pia (2024). “Replacing Priests with Doctors? The Medicalization of Education in Eighteenth-Century France and the Question of Secularization.” In Buchardt, M. (Ed.): Educational Secularization within Europe and Beyond. The Political Projects of Modernizing Religion through Education Reform. Oldenbourg: DeGruyter.
Stieger, Sophie Pia (2024). „Les Femmes Sont-Elles Françaises, Oui ou Non? Education, Political Exclusion and the Question of Women’s National Identity in France” In Fox, S. & Boser, L (Eds.): National Literacies in Education. Historical Reflections on the Nexus of Natiosn, National Identity, and Education. Cham: Palgrave MacMillan, 69-80.
Stieger, Sophie Pia & Daniel Tröhler (2023). „The Discovery of the Soul as a Place of Pilgrimage within: German Protestantism, Psychology, and Salvation through Education” Religions, 14(7), 921. doi.org/10.3390/rel14070921
Stieger, Sophie Pia (2023). „Transformatorische Bildungstheorie“ In Huber, M. & Döll, M. (Eds.): Bildungswissenschaft in Begriffen, Theorien und Diskursen. Wiesbaden: Springer, 629-635.
Stieger, Sophie Pia (2022). „Historische Diskursanalyse und Bildungsforschung.“ In Kergel, D., Heidekamp-Kergel, B. & August, S. V. (Eds.), Handbuch Interdisziplinäre Bildungsforschung. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa, 184-200. [also in: EEO, Enzyklopädie Erziehungswissenschaft Online, doi 10.3262/EEO24230486]
Stieger, Sophie Pia (2022). „Giving Psychology a New Past: Popular Origins, Religious Heritage and the Search for Different Beginnings”, Review of Tracing the Emergence of Psychology, 1520-1750, by Sven Hroar Klempe. IJHE, 12(1), 91- 93.
Stieger, Sophie Pia (2021). Review ‘Femininity’ and the History of Women’s Education: Shifting the Frame, edited by Tim Allender and Stephanie Spencer. Comparative Education (2021), doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2021.1929475
Stieger, Sophie Pia (2020). „The Alleged Universality of Bildung – A Brief History of a Hidden National Grammar.” IJHE, 10(2), 153-169.
Stieger, Sophie Pia (2020). „Transformative Theory of Bildung: A new chapter in the German tale of Bildung.” IJHE, 10(1), 64-80.
Stieger, Sophie Pia (2020). „The German Dream of Ancient Greek as an Antisemitic Nightmare?”, Review of Moses und Homer. Griechen, Juden und Deutsche: Eine andere Geschichte der deutschen Kultur, by Bernd Witte. IJHE, 10 (1), 114-116.
Talks, Lectures
“Religious but Secular? The Professionalization of Philosophy Teaching in Post-Revolutionary France” – Talk at the International Standing Conference for the History of Education [ISCHE 46, University of Lille, France, July 2025]
“The ‘Medicalization of Education’ in Eighteenth-Century France and the Complicated Question of Ideological Secularization” – Talk at the International Standing Conference for the History of Education [ISCHE 46, University of Lille, France, July 2025]
“Of Souls, Neurons, and Genes. The Educable Subject and the Refashioning of Interiority” – Talk at the Post-Doc Workshop Education Histories and Policies [University of Zürich, Switzerland, June 2025]
“Educated Bodies, Educated Brains: Untangling the Web of Ideas Behind the Contemporary Biological Turn in Education.” – Talk at a Conference on The Biological and Neuro-affective Turn in Education [University of Milan, Italy, May 2025]
“Citizenship, Nationhood, and the Question of Gender. The Case of Girls’ Education in 19th century France” – Talk at the European Social Science History Conference [ESSCH, Leiden University, Netherlands, March 2025)
“Denominations and Disciplines: The Question of the Soul as Instrument of Religious and Scientific Boundary- Making” - Presentation of PhD-Project at the The Vienna-Madison-Chapel Hill-Stanford-Aalborg Doctoral Colloquium for the History and Epistemology of Education [University of Vienna, Austria, September 2023]
“French Spiritualism and the Reform of Philosophy in Post-Revolutionary France” - Talk at the International Standing Conference for the History of Education [ISCHE 44, Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, July 2023]
“The Creation of a ‘French’ Soul-science? Spiritualism and the Import of German Psychology” – Presentation of PhD-Project at the Vienna-Madison-Chapel Hill-Stanford-Aalborg Doctoral Colloquium for the History and Politics of Education [UNC at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, September 2022]
“Domestic tensions and the national appropriation of foreign ideas: French Spiritualism and the soul in education” – Talk at the International Standing Conference for the History of Education [ISCHE 43, Milan, Italy, August 2022]
“Replacing Priests with Doctors? The Medicalization of Education in Eighteenth-Century France and the Question of Secularization” – Talk at the International Standing Conference for the History of Education [ISCHE 43, Milan, Italy, August 2022]
“Discursive Schemes of Human Improvement: The Case of French Psychiatry” - Presentation of PhD-Project at the Vienna-Madison-Chapel Hill-Stanford-Aalborg Doctoral Colloquium for the History and Politics of Education. [University of Aalborg, Campus Copenhagen, Denmark, September 2021]
“Educational Reasoning in the long 19th Century – The Soul as Floating Signifier” – Talk at the International Standing Conference for the History of Education [ISCHE 42, Virtual Conference, June 2020]
“The Engineering of Souls. A Comparative Study of Religious Milieus, Conceptualizations of the Essence of Man, and the Emergence of Scientific Fields” – Presentation of PhD-Project at the International Doctoral Colloquium on the History and Theory in Foundations of Education [University of Vienna, Austria, September 2020]
“Between the Claim to Universal Validity and International Marginality: The Transformational Theory of Bildung” – Talk at the International Standing Conference for the History of Education [ISCHE 41, University of Porto, Portugal, July 2019]
“The Engineering of Souls. A Comparative Study of (A-)Religious Milieus, Conceptualizations of the Immaterial Essence of Man, and the Emergence of Educational Theories” Presentation of PhD-Project at the International Doctoral Colloquium on the Theory and Data in the History of Education [Stanford Graduate School of Education, California, September 2019]
Memberships
Österreichische Gesellschaft zur Erforschung des 18. Jahrhunderts (ÖGE 18)