Seminar (3 credits)
Prof. Dr. Michael Hagner

Tuesday, 5–7 pm
Location: ETH Zürich, 
Rämistr. 36 RAC, E 14
8092 Zürich

Book print belongs to the most successful inventions in the history of mankind - it was especially important for the advancement of the sciences. Since 50 years, however, there is an ongoing talk about the end of book culture. In this seminar, we will discuss selected episodes of the history of the book from Gutenberg to the present and analyse their relevance for the history of knowledge.

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

program / bibliography / enter comments

Seminar (3 credits)
Prof. Dr. David Gugerli
Prof. Dr. Michael Hagner

Wednesday, 10–12 pm
from 2.3.2011
Location: ETH Zürich, 
Rämistr. 36 RAC, E 14
8092 Zürich

The seminar offers a close reading of Blumenberg's "Lesbarkeit der Welt", published in 1981. The metaphoric title of this study aims at different historic attempts to not only claim but rather to perceive the worlds intelligibility by reading its signs as a text. Blumenbergs cases cover a wide range from the bible to the dicipherment of the genetic code, i.e. they stem from theology, humanities, and the sciences. Hence, experience is treated both as a contingent process and as a process of interpretation.

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

program / bibliography / enter comments

Seminar (3 credits)
Dr. Sabine Höhler

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

The past three hundred years saw a rise of scientific measures to precisely monitor and visualize processes of natural production and consumption. Based on the "quantifying spirit" that emerged in the eighteenth century modern scientific nature management involved standardized units and metrics, statistical tables and models to inventory and to value molecules, gens, nutrients, or populations. From early concepts of "sustainability" in state forestry around 1700 to models of sustained yield in twentieth century fisheries and emissions trading as a current market-based scheme of environmental protection the course explores how the history of ecological accounting was always also a part of economic and political rationalities and accountabilities. How was nature attuned to the objects of market economies, to be allocated and exchanged as stocks and shares, as profitable commodities, or as social liabilities? To which disposing and norm-setting acts was the balancing and regulation of "natural capital" tied? And how did this connection substantiate what was viewed as an environmental problem and what could count as its possible solution?

requirements

program / bibliography / enter comments

Seminar (3 credits)
Dr. Eva Johach

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

According to Max Weber's famous dictum modernity is characterized by the "disenchantment of the world". The seminar will attend to this process, its main actors and results, shedding light on some important issues in 19th Century scientific discourse. In a second step, it will deal with those esoteric countermovements advocating a "re-enchanted" relationship with nature. Students will learn to understand the rules within the scientific field, the boundary work between science and pseudo-science, and to access conflicts which can be traced to the present, considering the debate on Richard Dawkin's book "The God Delusion" (2006).

requirements

program / bibliography / enter comments

Lecture + Coursework (3 credits)
Ass. Prof. Dr. Abigail Lustig

Friday, 2–6 pm, biweekly
starts 4.3.2011
Location: ETH Zürich, 
Haldeneggsteig 4 IFW, A 32.1
8092 Zürich

This course will explore how biologists have explained human nature to their fellow humans since the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871). Are people innately aggressive or altruistic? How far is human behavior rooted in biology? How much freedom do we have to defy that biology? Is it inheritance or the development of individuals through time that does most to determine how people turn out? How much can we learn about ourselves from studying other species? Biologists have answered these and other important questions in changing ways; we will look at some of them, beginning with Darwin and continuing through the development of evolutionary psychology in the 1990s. Readings will comprise both primary and secondary literature, with an emphasis on the former.

requirements

program / bibliography / enter comments