Caroline Rothauge is a private lecturer with teaching authorisation in modern and contemporary history. She studied applied cultural studies at the University of Lüneburg, earned her doctorate in modern history at Justus Liebig University Giessen, and completed her habilitation at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.

In her habilitation thesis ‚Zeiten in Deutschland 1879–1919. Konzepte, Kodizes, Konflikte’ (Times in Germany 1879–1919: Concepts, Codes, Conflicts, published in 2023 by Ferdinand Schöningh/Brill), Caroline Rothauge examined whether ideas about “time” and its use became more uniform in the German Empire around 1900 and how the associated norms were communicated or contested. A key finding of her research is that efforts to standardise time were indeed on the rise – whether at the political and legislative level, in the context of internal company and technical processes, or in self-help literature. However, paradoxically, this desire for definition and regulation led to a further pluralisation of times, collective and individual forms of time use, and a constantly changing understanding of time.

Due to many existing desiderata, Caroline Rothauge continues to conduct research on contemporary history, but now with a period of investigation that extends from the 19th through the 20th to the 21st century. In addition, she is devoting herself more generally to the study of standards. Fundamental to this is the observation that since around the middle of the 19th century, European and North American societies, as well as imperial contexts, have seen a boom in a wide variety of standardisation efforts, including weights and measures, language and counting, and ethical principles. However, these efforts should not be understood as smooth top-down processes, as they repeatedly encountered objections, difficulties in understanding, traditional habits and structural implementation problems.

In this sense, Caroline Rothauge's subjects of investigation not only reveal the tension between unity and diversity in law and other standardisation processes, but have also played a decisive role in bringing about these dynamics.