ABSTRACT

This paper explores the history of the curriculum vitae (CV) as a medium of job application in the Prussian technical bureaucracy around 1800. A document that so far has not received much attention in historiographical works, appeared as a major tool for bureaucratic innovation at the end of the eighteenth century. Drawing on primary archival sources, this paper will raise three major points. First, the curriculum vitae facilitated the depiction of ‘careers’: linear sequences of professional formation pointing toward certain positions. It helped applicants stylize their education and employment history as a time of continuous progress and merit, i.e. a veritable career. Second, the CV enabled the organization and control of personnel in a large-scale administrative body. Administrators used the CV as a tool to familiarize themselves with unknown persons and place them to positions according to their past professional trajectory. Finally, the lives recounted in CVs did not correspond to the contemporary concept of self-reflexive Bildung but were embedded in a utilitarian discourse of usefulness. In this vein, only those biographical events mattered for a CV that were useful for the state and pertained to the professional formation of the subject.

摘要

本文探讨了履历（CV）在1800年左右在普鲁士技术官僚机构中作为工作应用的一种媒介的历史。迄今为止，在史学工作中尚未引起人们广泛关注的一份文件已成为履历官僚机构创新的主要工具。十八世纪末。借鉴主要档案资源，本文将提出三个主要观点。一，简历促进了“职业”的描绘：指向特定位置的专业形成的线性序列。它帮助求职者将自己的教育和工作经历风格化，作为不断进步和追求卓越的时期，即名副其实的职业。其次，简历使大型行政机构中的人员得以组织和控制。管理员使用简历作为一种工具来熟悉陌生的人，并根据他们过去的职业轨迹将他们放置到位。最后，简历中叙述的生活与当代自反Bildung概念不符但被嵌入到功利主义的有用话语中。在这种情况下，只有那些对国家有用并与受试者的专业形成有关的简历才对简历重要。