Prof. Dr. Anne Rasmussen – Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies

Prof. Dr. Anne Rasmussen

University of Strasbourg
History of Science

External Senior Fellow
October 2015 – September 2017

Last Update: 31.08.2017

Curriculum Vitae

Anne Rasmussen has studied history and history of science at the Ecole normale supérieure (Ulm, Paris) and Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS, Paris). She is professor in history of science at the University of Strasbourg, belongs to the SAGE research unit (CNRS UMR 7363) and to the Department for social studies and humanities in medicine and health (DHVS) at the Medical Faculty. She is also member of the International committee governing board of the Historial de la Grande Guerre in Péronne, member of the steering committee of the Mission for First World War Centenary. She is chief editor of the historical journal Le Mouvement social, and contributes to the advisory board of the journal for intellectual history, Mil neuf cent. Her research proposes a historical approach to the relations between sciences, war and nation in 19th-20th centuries that she mainly applied in the fields of medicine and public health during World War I.

Recently, she edited, together with Heather Jones (LSE) and Nicolas Beaupré (USIAS), Dans la Guerre 1914-1918. Accepter, endurer, refuser (Les Belles Lettres, 2015) and published the chapter « Sciences et guerres » in the Histoire des sciences et des savoirsedited by Dominique Pestre (t. 3, Le Seuil, 2015) and the chapters « The Spanish Flu » and « Mobilising minds » in the Cambridge History of the First World Waredited byJay Winter (t. 3, Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Selected Publications

A. Rasmussen, « La grippe : un problème pour l’action sanitaire internationale, 1889-1930 », in S. Boudia, E. Henry (eds.), La mondialisation des risques. Une histoire politique et transnationale des risques sanitaires et environnementaux, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2015, p. 27-43.
A. Rasmussen, « Civilian populations vs. Soldiers ? Public health and infectious diseases in France, 1914–1918 », in« Medizin und Gesundheit in den kontinental europäischen Zivilgesellschaften, 1914–1918 », Medizin, Gesellschaft und Geschichte, 31, 2013, p. 95-118.
A. Rasmussen, « Science and technology », in J. Horne (ed.), A Companion to World War I, Oxford, Blackwell, 2010, p. 307-322.
C. Bonah, C. Masutti, A. Rasmussen, J. Simon (eds.), Harmonizing Drugs : Standards in 20th-Century Pharmaceutical History, Paris, Editions Glyphe, 2009 (with C. Bonah, C. Masutti, J. Simon, eds.).
A. Rasmussen, Au nom de la patrie. Les intellectuels et la Première Guerre mondiale (1910-1919), Paris, Editions La Découverte, 1996 (with C. Prochasson).

FRIAS Project

Soldiers out of control: An entangled history of accidents in the French and German military, 1920-1970.

With the recent multiplication of Western military interventions, accidents during operations have raised awareness for the military’s vulnerability by non-combat events. Our historical research project proposes to shed light on accidents in the military as a continuous yet variable problem. By looking at the military – in peacetime and wartime – as one of the most relevant social institutions of the 20th century we put the history of accidents into a wider perspective. This joint project FRIAS-USIAS will study a specific social sphere, in which all kinds of accidents take place: the military.  Focusing on France and Germany in the crucial period from 1920 to 1970, we ask whether an entangled history provides a better explanatory framework for risk assessment than, for example, do the nation-state or an abstract vision.