Search result: Catalogue data in Autumn Semester 2023
Science in Perspective  In “Science in Perspective”-courses students learn to reflect on ETH’s STEM subjects from the perspective of humanities, political and social sciences. Only the courses listed below will be recognized as "Science in Perspective" courses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Type A: Enhancement of Reflection CompetenceSiP courses are recommended for bachelor students after their first-year examination and for all master- or doctoral students. All SiP courses are listed in Type A. Courses listed under Type B are only recommendations for enrollment for specific departments. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 853-0725-00L | History Part One: Europe (The Cradle of Modernity, Britain, 1789-1914) | W | 3 credits | 2V | H. Fischer-Tiné | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | A range of fundamental processes have transformed European societies in the course of the 19th and the 20th centuries. This lecture series looks a several key aspects of these modernization processes and ask about their continuing relevance for our times . The regional focus lies on the Britain, where these processes took place for the first time. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | At the end of this lecture course, students can: (a) highlight the most important changes in the "long nineteenth century" in Britain (b) explain their long-term effects (also for other European countries ; and (c) relate these changes to global developments today. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | The thematic foci include: Industrialization, urban growth, democratisation and mass politics, shifting gender roles and ideals, and the emergence of consumerism and leisure culture. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lecture notes | Power Point Slides and references will be made available in digital form during the course of the semester. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literature | Mandatory and further reading will be listed on the course plan that is made available as from the first session. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prerequisites / Notice | This lecture series does not build upon specific previous knowledge by the students. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0105-00L | Background Knowledge Arabic World | W | 2 credits | 2V | U. Gösken | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | This lecture will discuss important topics of the Arab culture involving concepts relating to history, the role of literature, sciences and religion, concepts of 'the West', meaning of education, understanding of culture as well as current concepts and discourses relevant at the sociocultural level. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Teaching about epistemic contents relating to the Arabic world that constitute modern Arabs' self understanding and are relevant for adequate behavior in practically dealing with the Arabic world. What basic knowledge about 'their' culture are Arabs taught? What educational goals are pursued? What is the relationship they build with the West? The topics that are discussed on the basis of a scientifically critical approach are concepts and understandings of history, the role of literature, sciences and religion, concepts of the West and relationship with the West, the role of education, understanding of culture and cultural refinement, current concepts and discourses relevant at the sociocultural level. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 052-0801-00L | Global History of Urban Design I | W | 2 credits | 2G | T. Avermaete | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | This course focuses on the history of the design of cities, as well as on the ideas, processes and actors that engender and lead their development and transformation. The history of urban design will be approached as a cross-cultural field of knowledge that integrates scientific, economic and technical innovation as well as social and cultural advances. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | The lectures deal mainly with the definition of urban design as an independent discipline, which maintains connections with other disciplines (politics, sociology, geography) that are concerned with the transformation of the city. The aim is to make students conversant with the multiple theories, concepts and approaches of urban design as they were articulated throughout time in a variety of cultural contexts, thus offering a theoretical framework for students' future design work. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | In the first semester the genesis of the objects of study, the city, urban culture and urban design, are introduced and situated within their intellectual, cultural and political contexts: 01. The History and Theory of the City as Project 02. Of Rituals, Water and Mud: The Urban Revolution in Mesopotamia and the Indus 03: The Idea of the Polis: Rome, Greece and Beyond 04: The Long Middle Ages and their Counterparts: From the Towns of Tuscany to Delhi 05: Between Ideal and Laboratory: Of Middle Eastern Grids and European Renaissance Principles 06: Of Absolutism and Enlightenment: Baroque, Defense and Colonization 07: The City of Labor: Company Towns as Cross-Cultural Phenomenon 08: Garden Cities of Tomorrow: From the Global North to the Global South and Back Again 09: Civilized Wilderness and City Beautiful: The Park Movement of Olmsted and The Urban Plans of Burnham 10: The Extension of the European City: From the Viennese Ringstrasse to Amsterdam Zuid | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lecture notes | Prior to each lecture a chapter of the reader (Skript) will be made available through the webpage of the Chair. These chapters will provide an introduction to the lecture, the basic visual references of each lecture, key dates and events, as well as references to the compulsory and additional reading. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literature | There are three books that will function as main reference literature throughout the course: -Ching, Francis D. K, Mark Jarzombek, and Vikramditya Prakash. A Global History of Architecture. Hoboken: Wiley, 2017. -Ingersoll, Richard. World Architecture: A Cross-Cultural History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. -James-Chakraborty, Kathleen. Architecture Since 1400. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014. These books will be reserved for consultation in the ETH Baubibliothek, and will not be available for individual loans. A list of further recommended literature will be found within each chapter of the reader (Skript). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prerequisites / Notice | Students are required to familiarize themselves with the conventions of architectural drawing (reading and analyzing plans at various scales). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0534-00L | Yemeni Civil War: The Arab Spring, State Formation and Regional Rivalry | W | 3 credits | 2V | E. Manea | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | This course suggests a framework of analysis for the divergent outcomes of the Arab Uprisings (2011) using Yemeni Civil War as an example. It argues that the interaction between different types of state formation and regional context can explain the disintegration of some countries such as Yemen and Libya and the preservation of states such as Egypt and Tunisia. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | 1. To get an introduction into the politics of the Middle East and North Africa, the Arab Spring and its divergent outcomes 2. To look at the different forms of state formations within the MENA region 3. To investigate how the interaction between types of state formation and regional context shaped current situation in the post Arab Spring MENA region 4. To look closer at Yemeni Civil War | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | Countries that experienced popular uprisings in the 2011 Arab Spring had a range of outcomes. Some countries, like Tunisia and Egypt, had a long tradition of centralised state apparatus and a strong national identity. Their outcomes were, respectively, a fragile democratisation process and a reversion to military authoritarianism. Other countries, such as Yemen, Syria and Libya, are newer states that lack a solid national identity, and society is divided along tribal, religious sectarian, linguistic, and/or regional lines. There the outcome has been a meltdown of the political order, along with civil war and fragmentation. Why? This course suggests a framework of analysis for the divergent outcomes using Yemeni Civil War as an example. It argues that the interaction between different types of state formation and regional context can explain, respectively, the disintegration of countries such as Yemen, Syria and Libya; as well as the preservation of the Bahraini system, despite its ethnic nature. Egypt and Tunisia provide further variants in their well-developed statehood and sense of national identity. Yemen will be used as a case study for examining this complexity among the countries that experienced the Arab spring. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0005-00L | Colour-Coded Conflict: A Global History of Racism and Anti-Racism (c. 1500-2000) | W | 3 credits | 2V | H. Fischer-Tiné | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | The lectures analyses the trajectories of racism and anti-racism from the late 15th to the early 20th century. In an effort to go beyond the usual focus on anti-semitism, various forms of racist thought and practices linked to European and extra-European imperialism are scrutinised. Particular emphasis lies on scientific racism in the 19th/20th centuries and the counter-discourses it triggered. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | The students learn to historicise 21st century phenomena related to the legacy of racial thought, such as the "Black Lives Matter" movement or the current controversies in Europe, Australia and North America revolving around non-western migrants and refugees. Importantly, students of the sciences are sensitized for the role their disciplines played in creating structural inequalities. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | The lecture provides an overview of modern forms of racism as they emerged since the late 15th century. It reconstructs the close entanglement of racism with European expansion, but it also looks at racist practices and world views beyond the West. Importantly, it demonstrates that racist rhetoric went never uncontested by also discussing in-depth anti-racist critique and critics from the anti-racist interventions of Bartholomeo de las Casas in early modern Spain to the American civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s or the South African anti-Apartheid struggle during the final decades of the 20th century. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0066-00L | Science as a Profession? History and Present of Scientific Work  | W | 3 credits | 2S | M. Wulz | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | The seminar deals with the history and present of working conditions in science. Research requires time, a place to work, instruments, financial resources. How do social and economic relations, how do institutions and the ways of funding shape the working conditions in science? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Students learn about the history and present of the economic and social conditions of scientific work. They learn to critically reflect on the economic conditions, requirements and discriminatory effects of scientific institutions and of research funding. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | The seminar deals with the economic and social conditions of scientific research from 18th to 21st centuries: from "gentleman science" and industrial research, academic positions and extra-institutional research, the exclusion of women from academic disciplines, scientific research under the conditions of emigration and discrimination to current phenomena such as "entrepreneurial science" or academic precarity. Who had the time and means for scientific research at a certain moment in history? Which forms of funding and research organisation led to science becoming a profession, and whom did they exclude? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0438-00L | Environment in Transition. Literature between Ecological Crisis and Utopia | W | 3 credits | 2S | I. Barner | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Something is wrong with the planet, and it has to do with us humans. This insight challenges the sciences, the arts, politics: How can the crises be thought and represented, how can futures be imagined? With a focus on literature (cli-fi, science fiction, nature writing), the course develops a historical-critical perspective on the present and history of the ecological crisis. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Participants will develop an understanding of the history and present of literature in the Anthropocene and its relationship to science, politics, technology, economics, and society. To this end, we combine textual analyses with perspectives from the history of knowledge. Students apply this knowledge by learning to develop their own points of view and to contribute them to discussions, papers, and essays. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | The guiding question is: What do the transitions mean for the production of literature and knowledge? And how does our conception of an environment in transition affect our readings? Another thread leading through the seminar is the question of the possibilities and limits of (popular) scientific and artistic methods. How are futures imagined, in science, in literature? We read and discuss selected research literature (literary and science studies) together with fiction and non-fiction from the 20th and 21st century (e.g. Dorothee Elmiger, Amitav Gosh, Frank Herbert, Franz Hohler, Max Frisch, Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia E. Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, Anna Tsing). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0012-00L | Technology, Development, and Colonialism in the Age of Empire (c. 1800–1950) | W | 3 credits | 2S | E. Valdameri | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | This course explores the manifold interconnections existing between technology, development and colonialism in the period between c. 1800 and 1950. Central to this seminar is the development of technologies such as means of transportation, architecture, passports, torture techniques in relation to the colonial experience, decolonisation and development, especially in Asian and African settings. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Students will be able to a) develop new perspectives on their core subjects by bringing them in dialogue with the themes dealt with and raising ethical questions; b) familiarise with relevant topics examined by recent scholarship in the specific context of colonialism; c) think critically of the present through a better understanding of technology and development and their relationship with power. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | Students learn the history of technology and development from around 1800 to 1950 through examples taking into account theoretical texts and empirical case studies from the relevant multidisciplinary scholarship with a special, albeit not exclusive, focus on colonial contexts in Asia and Africa. More specifically, students are sensitized to the historical, political and cultural variabilities of technology and development beyond their supposedly objective rationale and within discourses of so-called civilising and modernising missions. The course is structured thematically, adopts a multidisciplinary approach, and uses academic texts as well as concrete examples. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0529-00L | Constructions in Context - Built, Experienced, Narrated Does not take place this semester. | W | 3 credits | 2V | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | What techniques drive the design of the environment, and how do these forces manifest themselves in the built result? The spectrum of relevant factors ranges from construction techniques to social networking. In an analysis of various media representations, argumentative techniques in architecture and urban planning are examined and questioned and questioned. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Students practice considering and placing arguments. A selection of texts demonstrates how most questions are asked with a specific intention. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | The techniques of creating space are manifold: cities are expanded, hiking trails are marked out, tunnels are bored and skyscrapers are clad in shimmering stones. When something new is created, in many cases it is first criticised and then given over to habituation. This course will ask: Who criticises, for whom? And where are the blind spots of public criticism in the design of the environment? With a focus on examples from Switzerland, current issues in the debate on technical solutions for climate change and material cycles are examined. In addition, own arguments are formulated. In the thematic range - from condensation to understanding - the focus is on questions of the designed environment. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0518-00L | Techniques of Modern Punishment – a Global History | W | 3 credits | 2V | S. M. Scheuzger | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | The course deals with the essential role of techniques in the developments of modern penal regimes in a global perspective, from the 18th century to present. The discussion focusses on confinement, from the individual cell to electronic tagging. Techniques of death penalty, corporal punishment, or forced labour in their social contexts, however, are subject of presentation as well. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | A) The students know central developments of modern punishment in their global entanglements. B) They are familiar with relevant penal techniques and their role in these developments. C) They are able to assess them in their social contexts. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0358-00L | If History Has the Keys to My House | W | 3 credits | 2V | F. Melandri | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | In this course we will explore the relationship between literary ideation - in its expression through language and narrative of affective, intimate and relational experiences, that is, of human experience-and the historical and political reality of the societies in which each of us is given to live. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Participants will be guided to develop the research and work plan for a personal writing project (full drafting of which is not included in the course and is optional). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | In this course we will explore the relationship between literary ideation - in its expression through language and narrative of affective, intimate and relational experiences, that is, of human experience-and the historical and political reality of the societies in which each of us is given to live. Frontal contextual lectures on specific themes of Italian history-from the relationship between linguistic minorities and the central state, to the terrorism of the years of lead, to colonialism and migration-will provide the basis for the description of the working methodology behind Francesca Melandri's literary production: research, interviews, study of texts and in archives, elaboration of characters, creation of plots, use of language, and so on. These will be alternated with lectures that will take the form of a group workshop, where students will be guided to organize the work plan for a project of their own that stems from the question: in what way - spectacular or stealthy - did the great History enter our homes? Participants will be guided to develop the research and work plan for this personal writing project (full drafting of which is not included in the course and is optional). It may be non-fiction, memoiristic or narrative, and will aim to explore aspects of the history and politics of one's own community, in whatever sense one understands - country, city, neighborhood, social group, or other - through the lens of private life and affect. In the final paper, not only the questions underlying the future research should be defined, but also the work plan necessary to produce it: bibliography, study materials, descriptions of the necessary site visits, planning of interviews with witnesses, interlocutors and experts; dramaturgical elaboration (in the case of a narrative paper) ... The topic of each project will be freely chosen by each participant, and the progress of the work plan will be discussed together in class. Special emphasis, in choosing these topics, will be given to exploring the blind zones in narratives, both private and collective: in omissions, implicit, ellipses. We will be guided by the knowledge that the most powerful traces left by History in human beings and communities are found in their silences. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0101-72L | The Modern City and Cultural Criticism. The "Knowledge of Life" in Reform Movements 1880-1933 | W | 3 credits | 2V | S. S. Leuenberger | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Rapid industrialisation, urbanisation and the unique sociopolitical conditions of 19th century Germany led, from 1880 onwards, to radical cultural criticism and calls for reform by parts of the bourgeoisie and youth. This lecture focuses on the theory and aesthetic practice of a wide range of reform movements, the so-called "Lebensreform" (life reform movement). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | The lecture is part of the "Science in Perspective" course programme: students will learn about the precursors of today’s calls for reform and alternative concepts which propagated the "back-to-nature" lifestyle around the 1900s. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | The rapid industrialisation, mechanisation and urbanisation of 19th century Europe gave rise to a whole new set of challenges and problems in cities. From 1880 onwards, the unique sociopolitical conditions in Germany resulted in anti-urban and cultural criticism by parts of the bourgeoisie and academic youth, culminating in the idea that the fanatical belief in progress would end in disaster. Consequently, a wide array of reform movements sprang up, focusing on medical hygiene and sociopolitical, ideological, religious and spiritual concepts, which were intended to heal the mind and body. These movements were a wholly German and Swiss phenomenon and summarised under the term "Lebensreform" which also encompassed naturopathy, dress reforms, naturism, health food and vegetarianism, youth and womens’ movements, sexual liberation and intentional communities, organic farming, land reform, cooperative/free economy/garden city movements, nature conservation and homeland protection, progressive education and country boarding school movement, art education and Dalcroze eurhythmics, expressive dance, theatre reforms, regional literature and art, anthroposophy, the emergence of Germanic-German/German Christian religious communities, religious socialism and the Jewish renaissance. This movement was clearly politically diverse, and attracted all manner of advocates, for example, those with social anarchist, jingoistic or anti-Semitic beliefs. What made them kindred spirits was their rather negative experience of modernisation: their fantasies about the era merely confirmed that existing interpretations of the human existence (Dasein) were obsolete. Amongst the fantasies was, as described by Gert Mattenklott, the idea of a dramatic shift in current thinking and the creation of a new world, the emergence of a new mankind that embodied the characteristics of youth, and a new community. Strong dichotomies like light and darkness, hot and cold, the fears of dehumanisation and a propensity for vegetarianism were also typical of life reforms. The lecture is part of the "Science in Perspective" course programme: students will learn about the precursors of today’s calls for reform and alternative concepts which propagated the "back-to-nature" lifestyle around the 1900s. Some of the key concepts used then are unknown today or have been disavowed due to exploitation by the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. Nevertheless, some of the original topics and objectives have once again become contemporary topics of discussion due to the debate about the future of society, the whole of mankind and the planet. Historization of present-day concepts is the condition on which plans for a possible future can be compared with previous attempts and experiences, and to identify alternatives and potential impasses, and provide objective evidence for debate. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literature | The reading list includes literary texts and discursive texts, amongst others, from Gustav Landauer, Erich Mühsam, Else Lasker-Schüler, Paul Scheerbart, Heinrich and Julius Hart, Rudolf Steiner, Sebastian Kneipp, Max Bircher-Benner, Theodor Hertzka, Franz Oppenheimer, Ebenezer Howard, Theodor Goecke, Hermann Muthesius, Karl Schmidt-Hellerau, Bruno Taut, Gustav Wyneken, Wassily Kandinsky, Ludwig Klages, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Walter Benjamin, Martin Buber. Furthermore, we will discuss creative contributions from E. M. Lilien and Fidus (pseudonym Hugo Höppener). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0527-00L | Introduction to the History of Technology: Concepts, and Current Debates | W | 3 credits | 2V | F. Mauch | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Technology and society cannot be separated: No society functions without technology. The seminar offers a problem-oriented introduction to basic questions of the history of technology, introduces approaches to the history of technology and discusses selected, ongoing debates. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | The course seeks to provide a critical introduction to the issues, methods, and selected areas of research in the history of technology. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | History of technology investigates technological developments that arise in specific historical contexts. These developments are perceived by social groups or entire societies as a means of social change and ultimately find use or are forgotten. The questions that history of technology poses derive from the technological and social change that are a product of contemporary orientation and thinking; current historiographical methods provide the tools for answering these questions. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prerequisites / Notice | Beginn 2. Semesterwoche (26.09.2023) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0685-00L | Making Data, Making Worlds: An Introduction to Data Practices | W | 3 credits | 2V | M. Leese | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Data are not neutral representations of external realities, but they are made by humans and imbued with interests, norms, and tacit assumptions. The aim of this course is to establish an understanding of how data matter in our construction and understanding of the world, and to draw attention to practices of their production, management, and regulation. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | At the end of the term, students will be able to: • reflect concepts and theories that capture the performativity of data • reflect concepts and theories that capture the socio-technical nature of data • assess the implications of data practices for social and political ordering • identify key actors, sites, and domain contexts of data practices | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | Week 1 Introduction: Making data, making worlds Week 2 How data matter I: Statecraft Week 3 How data matter II: Medicine Week 4 How data matter III: Artificial intelligence Week 5 Making data I: How to measure the world? Week 6 Making data II: Documentation Week 7 Data governance I: Privacy and Data protection Week 8 Data governance II: The right to be forgotten Week 9 Data governance III: Purpose limitation Week 10 Taking care of data I: Data quality Week 11 Taking care of data II: Fixing data Week 12 Taking care of data III: Preserving data Week 13 Exam | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0314-00L | The Left and Antisemitism | W | 3 credits | 2S | A. Kilcher | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | The Left and antisemitism, can this go together? In the seminar, we will explore the cultural, epistemic, biological, medial and political foundations of this complicated constellation since the 19th century. Together with guests, we will analyse antisemitism on the left historically, critically and culturally. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Left and anti-Semitic, does that even go together? How did left-wing anti-Semitism emerge and how has it developed since the 19th century (also on the basis of biological arguments)? In this seminar, we will explore the cultural, knowledge, media and political-historical foundations of a complicated constellation of problems. We will take a closer look at the positions of Jewish exponents as well as the debates and conflicts within left-wing parties and organisations. And together with guests, we will analyse the conflicts around anti-Semitism (for example in connection with the critique of capitalism, Documenta fifteen, BDS, etc.) from a historical and cultural studies perspective. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0360-00L | The Noise of Culture: Literature, Babel, and the Meaning of Meaning | W | 3 credits | 2V | P. Gerard | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | When is noise—din in the pub, static on the line, attenuation of the signal—a problem for communication? When is noise art? We’ll ask James Joyce. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | To gain familiarity with noise as a technical, systems-theoretical, and philosophical concept. To draw connections between noise as a mythical problem (Babel) and noise as a telecommunications problem. To apply recent conceptualizations of noise to the interpretation of several works of modern literature. To use noise to reexamine several central premises of traditional literary criticism, including meaning, intention, and representation. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | In this course we will explore how noise functions both as a threat to meaning and as a source of new order, with special attention to literary texts. We will begin with the myth of Babel and look at several subsequent attempts to redress the noisy confusion. As we will learn, noise is a necessarily “parasitical” term; we will follow its modern uses across a range of 20th century texts drawn from the fields of semiotics (Ogden, Eco), cybernetics (Wiener, Bateson), and philosophy (Serres, Derrida). Literary texts by James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and John Cage. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0438-00L | Environment in Transition. Literature between Ecological Crisis and Utopia | W | 3 credits | 2S | I. Barner | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Something is wrong with the planet, and it has to do with us humans. This insight challenges the sciences, the arts, politics: How can the crises be thought and represented, how can futures be imagined? With a focus on literature (cli-fi, science fiction, nature writing), the course develops a historical-critical perspective on the present and history of the ecological crisis. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Participants will develop an understanding of the history and present of literature in the Anthropocene and its relationship to science, politics, technology, economics, and society. To this end, we combine textual analyses with perspectives from the history of knowledge. Students apply this knowledge by learning to develop their own points of view and to contribute them to discussions, papers, and essays. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | The guiding question is: What do the transitions mean for the production of literature and knowledge? And how does our conception of an environment in transition affect our readings? Another thread leading through the seminar is the question of the possibilities and limits of (popular) scientific and artistic methods. How are futures imagined, in science, in literature? We read and discuss selected research literature (literary and science studies) together with fiction and non-fiction from the 20th and 21st century (e.g. Dorothee Elmiger, Amitav Gosh, Frank Herbert, Franz Hohler, Max Frisch, Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia E. Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, Anna Tsing). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0357-00L | Breathing Today. An Investigation into Landscapes, Arts and Struggles | W | 3 credits | 2V | M. Macé | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | A frankly unbreathable atmosphere is becoming our ordinary environment. Everyone feels it: we lack oxygen, health, calm, real connections, justice and joy. Because to breathe you need air, but you also need a whole quality of links, landscapes, futures and metamorphoses. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | How can we fight to detoxify our daily lives, this means also to fraternize in breathing, and to breathe at last with the others? This involves our ways of living in our territories, of thinking about the health of bodies and environments, the atmosphere, work, the city, the house, and even our ways of speaking or dreaming. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | A frankly unbreathable atmosphere is becoming our ordinary environment. Everyone feels it: we lack oxygen, health, calm, real connections, justice and joy. It has almost become our natural condition (the characteristic of intoxicated environments almost everywhere), aggravated by a pandemic that attacks the respiratory system; our political condition too, crossed by violence and discrimination; our psychic condition itself: the breathlessness that comes from our violent tiredness, and from the cost of adjusting to an overheated world. How can we fight to detoxify our daily lives, this means also to fraternize in breathing, and to breathe at last with the others? This involves our ways of living in our territories, of thinking about the health of bodies and environments, the atmosphere, work, the city, the house, and even our ways of speaking or dreaming. Because to breathe you need air, but you also need a whole quality of links, landscapes, futures and metamorphoses: many other existences with which to breathe, in which to hope, and which can breathe in you. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0358-00L | If History Has the Keys to My House | W | 3 credits | 2V | F. Melandri | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | In this course we will explore the relationship between literary ideation - in its expression through language and narrative of affective, intimate and relational experiences, that is, of human experience-and the historical and political reality of the societies in which each of us is given to live. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Participants will be guided to develop the research and work plan for a personal writing project (full drafting of which is not included in the course and is optional). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | In this course we will explore the relationship between literary ideation - in its expression through language and narrative of affective, intimate and relational experiences, that is, of human experience-and the historical and political reality of the societies in which each of us is given to live. Frontal contextual lectures on specific themes of Italian history-from the relationship between linguistic minorities and the central state, to the terrorism of the years of lead, to colonialism and migration-will provide the basis for the description of the working methodology behind Francesca Melandri's literary production: research, interviews, study of texts and in archives, elaboration of characters, creation of plots, use of language, and so on. These will be alternated with lectures that will take the form of a group workshop, where students will be guided to organize the work plan for a project of their own that stems from the question: in what way - spectacular or stealthy - did the great History enter our homes? Participants will be guided to develop the research and work plan for this personal writing project (full drafting of which is not included in the course and is optional). It may be non-fiction, memoiristic or narrative, and will aim to explore aspects of the history and politics of one's own community, in whatever sense one understands - country, city, neighborhood, social group, or other - through the lens of private life and affect. In the final paper, not only the questions underlying the future research should be defined, but also the work plan necessary to produce it: bibliography, study materials, descriptions of the necessary site visits, planning of interviews with witnesses, interlocutors and experts; dramaturgical elaboration (in the case of a narrative paper) ... The topic of each project will be freely chosen by each participant, and the progress of the work plan will be discussed together in class. Special emphasis, in choosing these topics, will be given to exploring the blind zones in narratives, both private and collective: in omissions, implicit, ellipses. We will be guided by the knowledge that the most powerful traces left by History in human beings and communities are found in their silences. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0194-00L | Semiotics: Between Science and Literature Does not take place this semester. | W | 3 credits | 2V | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Semiotics is the study of signs and sign-use. In this seminar, we will focus on signs and sign-use in science and mathematics: which signs do scientists create, how are they used, and what is the relation between sign-use and the production of scientific or mathematical knowledge? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Overview of different semiotic theories and problems Semiotics of mathematics and science | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | Semiotics is the study of signs and sign-use. As a discipline, semiotics is a chimera, which combines elements of philosophy, linguistics, literature, cognitive science, psychology, anthropology, biology and computer science. In this seminar, we will focus on signs and sign-use in science and mathematics: which signs do scientists create, how are they used, and what is the relation between sign-use and the production of scientific knowledge? We will address these questions by reading a selection of existing semiotic theories as well as some applications of semiotic theory to the study of scientific and mathematical practices. Based on this, we will gain insight into the processes of meaning-making, which we engage in when learning, producing or communicating scientific or mathematical knowledge. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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