Dr James Braund

School of European Languages and Literatures (University of Auckland)

James is a Research Assistant and Honorary Research Fellow in the University of Auckland’s School of European Languages and Literatures, and is a foundation member of that university’s Research Centre for Germanic Connections with New Zealand and the Pacific.

His research is mainly historical in nature, encompassing aspects of both science history and environmental history, and is primarily concerned with the many German-speaking scientists and naturalists who have visited or worked in New Zealand and the Pacific from the time of the Forsters to the present day.

His interest in genetics in particular has included work on Otto Frankel’s activities as a plant breeder and genetic conservationist, and more recently has also extended into the areas of German eugenics and German twin studies in the interwar and Nazi periods.

For more information on James: http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/staff/index.cfm?P=2189

Recent publications

2008. BRAUND, J. [with Douglas G. Sutton]. ‘The Case of Heinrich Wilhelm Poll (1877-1939): A German-Jewish Geneticist, Eugenicist, Twin Researcher, and Victim of the Nazis’, Journal of the History of Biology, 41:1, 1-35.

2002. BRAUND, J. ‘Otto Frankel – The Austrian who gave New Zealanders their daily bread’, New Zealand Science Review, 59:1, 13-16.