Lecture (3 credits)
Prof. Dr. Michael Hagner

Tuesday, 5–7 pm
Location: ETH Zürich, 
Rämistr. 101 HG E 33.3
8092 Zürich

Today the life sciences are considered as the leading discipline of the 21th century. However, important scientific and social issues of life and death are only to be understood in a broader historical perspective. Therefore, we will explore central topics of research on life and living beings from antiquity to present times. Our main focus will be on modern biology from the 19th century onwards.

requirements (in german, pdf, 20KB)
guidelines for essays (in german, pdf, 82KB)

program / bibliography / enter comments

Lecture + Coursework (3 credits)
Dr. Sabine Höhler

Tuesday, 2–4 pm
Location: ETH Zürich, 
Rämistr. 36 RAC, E 14
8092 Zürich

The seminar explores the 1960s and 1970s as a founding period in the history of the environment in the second half of the 20th century. We will discuss three related aspects: first, the optimistic progressivism of the space age, second, impressions of growing global interdependencies in the Cold-War era, and, third, the debates on environmental pollution, resource scarcity, and population growth within the rising environmental movement. At the core of these issues was the figure of Spaceship Earth. This figure expressed the growing awareness of the finiteness and the uncertain future of planet earth. We will study how the image of the earth as a spaceship structured scientific disciplines and societal discourse; how it centered fears and hopes of the earth as a fragile life support system; and how it delegated the potential of planetary design and intervention to science and technology. We will discuss examples from ecology, human ecology, economy, biology, physics, and cybernetics, as well as from contemporary discussions about possible and desirable futures and about the power or powerlessness of the sciences. The aim of the seminar will be to refine our historical understanding of the so-called Environmental Age and its imagery of absolute earthly limits, which in the late 1980s led to our current model of Sustainable Development in environmental politics. This interdisciplinary endeavor invites students from the humanities and social sciences as well as from the natural sciences and from engineering.

requirements

program / bibliography / enter comments

Lecture + Coursework (3 credits)
Dr. Caspar Hirschi

Wednesday, 2–4 pm
Location: ETH Zürich, 
Rämistr. 36 RAC, E 14
8092 Zürich

A significant amount of scientific and scholarly work consists of disputes, quarrels and polemics. This is not a new phenomenon, quite the contrary. However, the general perceptions about what learned men are allowed or even obliged to fight for and how they are supposed to speak and act in conflicts, have changed quite dramatically over time. In this seminar we want to look at famous and not so famous scientists and scholars from the seventeenth century to the present, and analyse, what they had to say about conflicts in the world of science and what they did when engaging in disputes themselves.

requirements

program / bibliography / enter comments

Lecture + Coursework (3 credits)
Dr. Omar Nasim

Monday, 2–4 pm
Location: ETH Zürich, 
Rämistr. 36 RAC, E 14
8092 Zürich

What is this thing that we call ‘science’? In the course, we shall consider various aspects of this question and several answers to it. In particular, among the questions we shall address will be: What is the distinction between science and pseudo-science? Do scientific theories represent the true nature of the world, or are they just convenient tools for making predictions and developing technology? Is science rational? Is it objective? Is it influenced by social/cultural factors? What characterizes the scientific methodology? What is the nature of scientific knowledge? Is it different from everyday knowledge? How are scientific theories/models/hypotheses confirmed/falsified? What is the relation between scientific theories and observed facts? We will be using a variety of readings, from an array of traditions, in order to tackle such questions.

requirements

program / bibliography / enter comments

Seminar

Dr. Oliver Hochadel
Prof. Dr. Marianne Sommer

Wednesday, 2-6 pm
Location: t.b.a.

Der Tiergarten ist ein Ort für viele und für vieles und daher auch voller Widersprüche: Er dient der Unterhaltung aber auch der Belehrung, er ist ein Ort der Massenkultur aber auch der Wissenschaft. Er zieht Besuchermassen an, provoziert aber auch die Kritik vieler Tierschützer. Er ist eine künstliche Wildnis inmitten der Stadt.

Das Seminar thematisiert das Verhältnis von Mensch und Tier im Rahmen der Geschichte des Tiergartens aus kultur- wie auch als wissenschaftshistorischer Perspektive. U.a. folgende Aspekte werden behandelt: fürstliche Tierhaltungen in der Frühen Neuzeit, Wandermenagerien, das Aufkommen bürgerlicher Tiergärten und der Massenkultur im 19. Jahrhundert, Tierhandel und Kolonialismus, Schaukonzepte im Wandel der Zeit, die Anfänge der Verhaltensforschung, der Tiergartenbiologie und des Artenschutzes („Arche Noah“).

Vorbereitende Literatur:
Mitchell G. Ash (Hg): Mensch, Tier und Zoo. Der Tiergarten Schönbrunn im internationalen Vergleich vom 18. Jahrhundert bis heute. Wien: Böhlau, 2008.