Search result: Catalogue data in Spring Semester 2017

GESS Science in Perspective Information
Only the topics listed in this paragraph can be chosen as "GESS Science in Perspective" course.
Further below you will find the "type B courses Reflections about subject specific methods and content" as well as the language courses.

6 ECTS need to be acquired during the BA and 2 ECTS during the MA

Students who already took a course within their main study program are NOT allowed to take the course again.

These course units are also listed under "Type A", which basically means all students can enroll
Type A: Enhancement of Reflection Competence
Students who already took a course within their main study program are NOT allowed to take the course again.
Science Research
NumberTitleTypeECTSHoursLecturers
851-0132-04LWhat is Science for?W3 credits2SA. J. Lustig
AbstractThis course will explore five different ways that investigators since the 17th century have explained the workings of the natural world: natural history, discovering what exists in the cosmos; analysis of nature's component parts; experiment to create new things and phenomena; technoscientific application for power and profit; and hermeneutics, attempts to answer broad questions about meaning.
ObjectiveThis course will explore five different ways of asking questions about the natural world that have characterized the emergence of modern science since the seventeenth century: natural history, the project of enumerating and ordering the kinds and individuals that make up the cosmos; analysis of nature's component parts by breaking larger elements into smaller ones; experiment to create things and phenomena that have never previously existed; technoscientific application to commodify the natural world, for power and profit; and hermeneutics, the attempt to understand or create meaning in and from the cosmos. The course is intended primarily to give students in the sciences, engineering, and mathematics a broader, contextual view of the history of science.
Case studies will include:
for natural history: the development of biological systematics, the quantification projects of the nineteenth century, and the development of the theory of evolution by natural selection;
for analysis: the revolution in astronomy and terrestrial physics of the seventeenth century, the project to analyze all human knowledge in the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d'Alembert, and the invention of rational production;
for experiment: the eighteenth-century science of electricity, the invention of modern plant and animal breeding, and Justus Liebig's invention of a new way to produce chemists and chemistry in the nineteenth century;
for technoscience: industrial R&D and the synthesis of nylon, and tensions between science and commerce embodied in the tobacco industry;
for hermeneutics: seventeenth-century world-readings, eugenics, and "natural" and "human" kinds.
851-0157-71LOf Plants and Men Restricted registration - show details
Number of participants limited to 40.

Particularly suitable for students of D-BIOL, D-USYS.
W3 credits2SN. Guettler, M. Wulz
AbstractThe seminar considers the history of a remarkable relation: plants and men. For understanding the human condition the engagement with plants, their morphology, and their locomotion was crucial in different periods. In this course we examine the relation between knowledge on plants and conceptions of the human in historical and philosophical perspective.
ObjectiveIn recent years various forms of the "non-human" - animals, objects or monsters - have strongly shaped cultural studies and their theories (such as animal studies or actor-network theory). Plants, however, are significantly underresearched especially as over the course of history they have repeatedly stimulated ideas of what it meant to be human. This course traces different conceptions of the plant-human relation since the Early Modern period, ranging from botany to ecology, philosophy, art, and popular literature. How did (knowledge on) plants shape anthropological, social, political, and economic concepts? How have "encounters" with plants changed our views of the human and the social? And in which ways does knowledge on plants still influence our visions and dystopias of cohabitation and society (for instance "rhizom" or "invasive species")?
851-0158-09LExperimenting. On the Practice of Scientific ResearchW2 credits1SH. von Sass
AbstractWhat would be left over from the allegedly "robust" or "hard" science if we had no experiments? Hence, the research on science has to understand itself as thinking about what it means to perform experiments. How is the relation between the experimentally shown and the generally claimed going beyond the single experiment? How could we deal with the impossibility of being free from all prejudgemen
ObjectiveIntroduction into basic problems in the philosophy of and the research on science.
851-0157-72LOn the Future of Scientific Publishing Restricted registration - show details
Number of participants limited to 20.
W3 credits2SN. Guettler, M. Stadler
AbstractThe aim of this teaching project is to design and develop an innovative, internet-based science magazine in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Students will be given the opportunity to critically engage with the future of digital scientific publishing, both conceptually and practically.
ObjectiveThe project combines an historical and theoretical approach to scientific publishing with the implementation of an actual, digital publication. The aim of the project is to design and develop an innovative, internet-based science magazine in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). By conceptualising and developing a prototype magazine students will be given the opportunity to learn about, and engage with, current debates about the future of scientific publishing, while simultaneously shaping it - pro-actively. In the light of recent discussions concerning open access, the digital humanities, and so on, how can we deploy digital technologies more purposefully and attractively to communicate our research results to the wider public? The seminar is a continuation of the seminar "Pulish or Perish, 1800-2016: On the History of Scientific Publishing" (fall term 2016, participation of that course is not a requirement).
851-0157-73LArt and the Machine Since the Early Modern Age Restricted registration - show details
Number of participants limited to 40
W3 credits2SV. Wolff
Abstract"I want to be a machine" Andy Warhol famously stated in an Art News interview from the year 1963. For a long time already machines have been seen as ingenious instruments of the artificial or the marvelous. In the course of industrialization the machine would then became the central topos for modernity's critical self-reflection.
ObjectiveBased on a series of exemplary theoretical and artistic positions this seminar traces the historical epistemology of this topos and discusses the relationship between art and the machine from the early modern age until today. We will deal with diverse theories of the machine, with historical debates and criticism concerning the social relation to the machine, as well as with works of art, literature, and architecture that address this relation.
851-0157-49LWhat is life? Introdution Into the History of the Life SciencesW3 credits2VM. Hagner
AbstractThe aim of this lecture is to introduce into the most important theories of life from ancient times until the early 21st century. I will put a focus on philosophical concepts and on the modern life sciences since Chalres Darwin.
ObjectiveIn the lecture course, attendants will learn to distinguish historically and systematically various theories of life.
851-0157-74LPhotography Between Science and Art Restricted registration - show details
Number of participants limited to 30
W3 credits2SM. Hagner
AbstractThis seminar is devoted to the role of photography in art and science since its beginnings in 1839. We will read selected texts on the theory of photography and analyse photographs for getting an overview over its fascinating history.
ObjectiveWhen photography started to conquer the world in 1839, it was unclear whether it belonged to the arts or to the sciences. Since those times and despite the digital revolution, this double function of photography has not changed significantly. The aim of this seminar is twofold: First, we want to reconstruct the transformations of photography in the trading zone of the sciences and the arts. Second, we want to analyse epistemological and aesthetical theories, which reflect the function of photography. The use of the photography archive of ETH Zurich will be part of the seminar.
851-0157-69LHistory of Astronomy Restricted registration - show details
Particularly suitable for students of D-ERDW, D-MATH, D-PHYS
Number of participants limited to 40
W3 credits2SS. Mastorakou
AbstractThe course is designed to provide an overview of the astronomical developments from the ancient Greek world to the 16th century. We are going to use primary sources tackling historical, technical and philosophical questions. Special attention will be paid to the dramatic change in the way people understood the structure of the heavens and the nature of the physical world.
ObjectiveThe course aims at providing a working knowledge of astronomy and cosmology from the ancient world to the 16th century. Upon its completion the students will be able to describe how our knowledge of the heavens changed from Aristotle's system to the Copernican Revolution. In addition, they will also have acquired an appreciation of the debates about man's place in the cosmos and the philosophical principles underpinning cosmology.
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