Urška Bratož, PhD

Research Areas:

• Social history
• History of medicine and health
• history of everyday life

Biography:

Urška Bratož has graduated in 2005 in cultural studies and anthropology at the University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities in Koper, with a thesis on possible methodological intertwining between anthropology and historiography. Between 2005 and 2010, she was a postgraduate student of the doctoral study programme History of Europe and the Mediterranean at UP FHŠ. She received her PhD degree in 2010, with a thesis on cholera outbreaks in the 19th century in the Austrian Littoral (“Socio-historical aspects of epidemic diseases: the Istrian experience with cholera”), supervised by prof. D. Darovec.

She is employed at the Science and Research Center, Institute of Historical Studies as a research associate. Between 2013 and 2015, she served as Institute’s Deputy Head. From 2005 to 2010, she had worked at ZRS Koper as a young researcher. In addition, she collaborated with the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Primorska, as an assistant and later as an assistant professor within the undergraduate and MA courses of History.

She is the author of a scientific monograph on 19th-century cholera epidemics in Istria, which was published in Slovenian and Italian languages. Besides, she authors 5 chapters in scientific monographs and more than 10 scientific articles on the history of medicine, epidemic diseases and social history.

In 2011 she received the Glasnik znanosti award (by the Science and Research Center of Koper) for individual top scientific achievements of promising researchers, and the Vladimir Bartol award (by the Faculty of Humanities, University of Primorska) for her PhD thesis.

Research activity:

The research work of Urška Bratož includes papers on history of medicine and health practices, epidemic diseases, health prevention, hygienization, history of everyday life, social care and other topics of social and cultural history, with an emphasis on the period from the 19th century to the First World War. She regularly presents the results of her research at scientific conferences and publishes them in both national and international scientific journals and publications.

She is involved in various national and international research projects, and is currently also the leader of the ARRS basic research project ‘Cultural-historical aspects of senescence: experiences, representations, identities’.

In the past years she cooperated in research activities within projects, such as ‘Shared Culture’ (Strategic Project for the Knowledge and Availability of Shared Cultural Heritage, Cross-Border Cooperation Programme Italy-Slovenia 2007-2013) (2010-2011), and within national research/applicative projects, f.e.: ‘Social and demographic image of Istria in the Early Modern Age’ (2009-2011); ‘Rural and Urban Primorska: Social, Economic and Legal Relations from the Old Order to Modernization’ (2009-2011); ‘Rebellious Survival Strategies in Slovenian Territory (16th to 19th Cent.)’ (2011-2014), ‘The potency of small Istrian towns (14th to 18th Cent.) (2013-2016). Currently she is working especially within the ARRS project ‘Adriatic Welfare States. Social Politics in a Transnational Borderland from the mid-19th until the 21st Century’, the research programme ‘The Mediterranean and Slovenia’ and the international project ‘MerlinCV’ (Interreg V-A Italija-Slovenija 2014-2020).

She has also collaborated at the scientific journal Acta Histriae as an editor (2006-2013), and was a member of organization committees of several (international) scientific conferences, organized by the Institute for Historical Studies: ‘Interpreter of cultures’ (2007), ‘Witnesses and Testimonies of the Past’ (2009), ‘The Third Party – Liturgies of Violence and Liturgies of Peace: mediators, arbitrators, peacemakers, judges’ (2011), ‘The Population of Slovenia and its neighbouring countries from a Historical Perspective: Research Challenges of Historical Demography’ (2012), and ‘Contaminations – Discourses, Practices and Representations: the Upper Adriatic between the Middle Ages and Modernity’ (2013) among others.