At this year’s Dies Facultatis on June 18, 2026, Dr. Sophie Pia Stieger was awarded the Dissertation Prize of the Faculty of Philosophy and Education at the University of Vienna.
Her dissertation, titled „Denominations and Disciplines. On the Soul, Ideological Demarcation and the Absence of Psychology in France,„ examines how 18th-century debates about the soul were shaped by the religio-political circumstances of their time — and how these debates, in turn, came to shape the history of psychology as the science of the soul. At its center is the striking absence of a distinct psychology in Catholic France, in sharp contrast to developments in Protestant Germany. The thesis shows how, under these particular conditions, an alternative way of understanding human beings and education emerged — one that did without the concept of the soul altogether.
The dissertation was supervised by Daniel Tröhler, Professor of General Education at the University of Vienna. It was reviewed by two internationally renowned historians: intellectual historian Richard Whatmore (University of St Andrews) and Brad S. Gregory, Professor of European History at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana).
Congratulations on this wonderful achievement!
An official publication of the dissertation as a book is in the works; if you are interested, you can request a digital copy in advance at sophie.stieger@ife.uzh.ch.
