Lecture (3 credits)
Prof. Dr. Michael Hagner

Tuesdays, 5-7 pm
Location: ETH Zurich, 
Haldeneggsteig 4, IFW, A 36
8092 Zurich

Starts September 18, 2012
14 Sessions

There is only one certainty in life: death. This brute fact has animated much thought and work in theology, art and philosophy - but also in the natural sciences, such as biology and medicine. Questions regarding health and disease, evolution, extinction and immortality have played a crucial role in this connection. This course aims to explore above relations - the relations between the scientific investigation of life and cultural notions of death - from a historical perspective (assuming there is no such thing as the scientific investigation of death). While the course covers the times from antiquity up to the present, the main emphasis will be placed on the modern life sciences since the 19th century.

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

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Seminar (3 credits)
Dr. Hendrik Adorf

Mondays, 3–5 pm
Location: ETH Zurich,
Haldeneggsteig 4, IFW, A 34
8092 Zurich

Starts September 24, 2012
13 Sessions

We adopt the perspective of a cultural history of space to look at a variety of discourses like e.g. land surveys in the 18th century, Kant's theory of space and time or the abstraction of 'spacetime' that takes place with the works of Minkowski and Einstein. Also included are utopian concepts like phantasies of spiritualistic transmission or plans to colonize outer space. Students get an overview of different historical problems, concepts and narratives of space. They will thus be enabled to critically evaluate and differentiate between more recent theories of space and spatiality.

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

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Seminar (3 credits)
Vera Wolff
Margarete Pratschke

Tuesdays, 10-12 am
Location: ETH Zurich, 
Haldeneggsteig 4, IFW, C 33
8092 Zurich

Starts September 18, 2012
14 Sessions

In 1851 Gottfried Semper hoped that "here is victory and freedom", as he diagnosed a radical transformation in the relation between "Science, Industry and Art", brought about by scientific and economic "speculation". We will discuss the historical theory and practice of this embattled relationship along terms such as labor, imagination, research or innovation.
This seminar will examine the modern constellation and interdependency of science, industry, technology, and art on the basis of concrete examples. We will focus on historical developments and their relevance for explaining recent phenomena by dealing with questions like: What was understood under "applied" or "industrial arts", what kind of hopes were based on "practical aesthetics" in the industrial age, what was considered to be "useful knowledge" in 18th and 19th century England, and what's the basis of today's understanding of "applied science" or "artistic research"? What kind of work or labor is done in the artist's studio, the laboratory, or the factory? How was the relationship of artistic, scientific and industrial production historically conceived, practiced and institutionalized? What role does design play in product development and what was it supposed to achieve for the corporate identity of companies like AEG, IBM, or Apple? How could a sculpture convey Einstein's theory of relativity or in what way could a painting have been regarded as a fully-fledged contribution to scientific research? The seminar's methodological aim is to explore and test the interplay of approaches and research interests from art history and from the history of science.

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

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Seminar (3 credits)
Dr. Omar Nasim
Dr. Max Stadler

Tuesdays, 3-5 pm
Location: ETH Zurich, 
Haldeneggsteig 4, IFW, D 42
8092 Zurich

Starts September 18, 2012
14 Sessions

Gazing at the stars or into a microscope, taking dial readings, keeping an eye on the traffic signals or a control panel - observational practices come in many varieties. Over the last two centuries, they have also become increasingly instrument-mediated, displacing the senses while pervading almost every facet of modern life. This course examines this historical shift in what it means to observe. Depending on whom we ask - say, the astronomer, microscopist or naval navigator in the nineteenth century, the ornithologist, aeroplane pilot or experimental physicist in the twentieth century - the answer will vary. At the same time, the impression is hard to escape that wherever we choose to look, in the course of the last two centuries, the meanings of observation have increasingly come to be defined less by human, perceptual capacities, but by instruments, machines, pointers, dials and displays.
This course examines this historical transformation, introducing the student to the hugely significant role which observational practices and technologies obviously haved played in the genesis of modern science, be that in laboratory, the clinic or out in the field; but we shall also venture beyond these more strictly scientific forms of observation, examing the broader cultural and practical significance of 'observation' in a world increasingly replete with machines, displays, vehicles and all manner of visual media. To this end, we will familiarize ourselves with the central concepts and topics which historians of science have brought to the topic in the wake of the so-called practical and visual turns; among other things, we will thus examine the role of instruments, bodily habits and regimes of attention, and epistemic virtues such as objectivity or (more mundanely) visual efficiency within, and beyond, the scientific laboratories.

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

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Seminar (3 credits)
Prof. Dr. Michael Hagner
Prof. Dr. Philipp Sarasin

Wednesdays, 10-12 am
Location: University of Zurich,
exact location to be announced,
8092 Zurich

Starts September 19, 2012
14 Sessions

In demarcation from classic notions of pursuing the history of science, the history of knowledge is to be understood as an methodologically alternative attempt at coming to terms with the extraordinary role which is being played by science in modern society. This includes both, scrutinizing the production, stabilization and demise of scientific, technological and medical knowledge, as well as accounting for the non-professional and non-scientific forms of knowledge, and how these are (also) actively shaping the prevailing, social and cultural systems of value and practice. On the basis of exemplary texts, this course explores how such a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the epistemic, social and cultural conditions of knowledge may be achieved.

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

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Lecture (2 credits)
Dr. Uwe Justus Wenzel

Fridays, 5-7 pm
Location: ETH Zurich
Haldeneggsteig 4, IFW, C 31
8092 Zurich

Starts September 21, 2012
14 Sessions

Special permission required by lecturer.

Learning to write texts, that can present topics from the sciences to an interested public (in newspapers, non-specialist journals but also in papers for non-specialists in an academic context); to gain insights into the cultural, historical and philosophical contexts of science and the public.

Practical exercises in writing articles for the feature pages of newspapers will be combined with the theoretical work on topics relevant for the historical, sociological and philosophical aspects of writing for others.

Voraussetzungen: Die Bereitschaft, sich auf ein Projekt mit experimentellem Charakter einzulassen. GUTE BEHERRSCHUNG DER DEUTSCHEN SPRACHE. Das Seminar wird z.T. als Blockveranstaltung (gegen Semesterende) stattfinden. Die Teilnehmerzahl ist begrenzt. SCHRIFTLICHE ANMELDUNG erforderlich (bis 31. August): uwe.justus.wenzel | at | nzz.ch