Search result: Catalogue data in Autumn Semester 2024
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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| 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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| 851-0685-00L | Data and Society  | W | 3 credits | 2V | M. Leese | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | This lecture series explores the multifaceted role of data in shaping contemporary society, governance, and individual lives. The course equips students with a critical understanding of how data is made, managed, and preserved, and its implications for societal norms and individual rights. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0067-00L | Science Studies between economic growth, social needs and critique | W | 3 credits | 2S | M. Wulz | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Science has become a subject of research in its own right since the 20th century: the field of "science studies" examines the organization of science, its social benefits, its contribution to economic growth or its impact on people and nature. The seminar introduces the history of this research and sheds light on its applied and critical dimensions. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Using historical sources from the field of science studies, students learn to understand societal expectations and criticisms of the sciences in the 20th and 21st centuries. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | The value of science for social and economic development has been an issue of debate since the 20th century. At the same time, science became a subject of research in its own right: the sociology of science in the 1930s dealt with the social benefits ("Science for Social Needs") and the organization of science. Since the 1950s, the research field of the "Science of Science" has quantified scientific publications ("Science Citation Index") and attempted to measure the relationship between research and innovation, between education and economic growth (OECD studies). Science seemed to promise scientific and technological progress, innovation and economic growth - both in the industrialized countries and, with the help of "technology transfer", to the then so-called "developing countries". At the same time, in the field of "technology assessment", the sciences were criticized for causing risks and damages to humans and nature (e.g. through pesticides or biotechnology) or entailing effects of social inequality. The fact that the sciences have been the subject of debate since the 20th century is not only a matter of general public interest. It is also the effect of the development and funding of research fields that deal with measures to increase innovation or with the benefits and risks of science. The seminar deals with the history of this research in its political and economic contexts as well as in its applied and critical function. It examines the knowledge on which historical and current expectations of science in politics and society are based. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literature | Sources (selection): – J.D. Bernal: The Social Function of Science (1939) – Derek de Solla Price: Little Science, Big Science (1963) – Hilary Rose & Steven Rose: Science and Society (1969) – Christopher Freeman: Economics of Research and Development (1977) – Ziauddin Sardar, Dawud G. Rosser-Owen: Science Policy and Developing Countries (1977) – Gernot Böhme, Wolfgang van den Daele, Rainer Hohlfeld, Wolfgang Krohn, Wolf Schäfer, Tilman Spengler: Die gesellschaftliche Orientierung des wissenschaftlichen Fortschritts (1978) – Donna Haraway: Class, Race, Sex, Scientific Objects of Knowledge (1982) Secondary literature (selection): – Gerardo Ienna: The Double Legacy of Bernalism in Science Diplomacy (2022) – Elena Aronova: Scientometrics with and without Computers: The Cold War Transnational Journeys of the Science Citation Index (2016) – Elena Aronova & Simone Turchetti: Science Studies During the Cold War and Beyond (2017) – Ariane Leendertz: "Finalisierung der Wissenschaft". Wissenschaftstheorie in den politischen Deutungskämpfen der Bonner Republik (2013) – David Edgerton: The Political Economy of Science. Prospects and Retrospects (2017) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0077-00L | Philosophy of War Does not take place this semester. | W | 3 credits | 2S | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | In the course we read classical texts from the field of philosophy of war (Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Tolstoy, Machiavelli, Kant) and focus on questions such as: what is war? Strategy and tactics in war? Ethics of war? War and Politics? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Students learn about the different types of argumentative texts and their historical, social, political and ethical context. They learn to understand the descriptive and critical value of texts in regard to the topic of war. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0019-00L | Insect Histories: Bugs that Made the Modern World | W | 3 credits | 2S | T. Bartoletti | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | The seminar explores insects as historical actors and their diverse interactions with human societies over time and space. It offers an overview of recent approaches in environmental history and multispecies ethnography while providing an analytical framework to understand global processes of natural resource exploitation, knowledge formation, and imperialism. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | The objective is to analyze human-insect interactions by identifying key historical factors (economic, scientific, political). Students will integrate current frameworks in the study of environmental history through the combination of primary sources and interdisciplinary research. They will develop skills rooted in their interest in insects and learn to translate them into feedback to peers. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | Scholars typically approach Nature-related histories by focusing on environmental change, the commodification of resources, and the legacy of natural history collections. Examples of this approach include studies on deforestation, dam constructions, the rubber boom, and the colonial history of European museums. In contrast to these commonly explored topics, insects are often underrepresented in historical research, both as living creatures and metaphors. Addressing this gap, the seminar explores human-insect interactions from a global historical perspective between 1600 and 2000. This exploration encompasses a critical and relational understanding of the history of the scientific study of insects (entomology) and the processes of imperial expansion and global territorialization. To achieve this, students will learn how human-insect interactions led to radical transformations in diverse environments, reflecting a particular modern conception of nature influenced by control anxieties related to economic profit and tropical diseases. Moreover, students will examine how ways of knowing about insects and the environment were influenced by broader correlated economic and imperial factors. Focusing on insect (hi)stories, the aim of this seminar is to apply new methodologies for non-human agencies and source analysis on both micro and macro scales in global and environmental histories. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0201-00L | Literature and History | W | 3 credits | 2V | L.‑P. Dalembert | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Literature and history have often coexisted, "dialogued". History is a recurring theme in many literary works. In this seminar, we will explore the relationship between literature and history. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | The aim is to evoke History as a source of creation for writers. The aim is to identify the bridges built by this transdisciplinarity, and to question the way in which History is "rewritten" by literature, after having been at its origin. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | Literature and history have often coexisted, "dialogued". History is a recurring theme in many literary works. In this seminar, we will explore the relationship between literature and history. We'll look at several periods of world history, from America to Europe and Africa. The aim is to evoke History as a source of creation for writers. The aim is to identify the bridges built by this transdisciplinarity, and to question the way in which History is "rewritten" by literature, after having been at its origin. To illustrate our points, we will draw on 20th- and 21st-century novels by French, Haitian and Algerian authors... - Rosalie L’infâme, Évelyne Trouillot - Le Manuscrit de Port-Ébène, Dominique Bona - L'Affaire de l'esclave Furcy, Mohammed Aïssaoui - Cris, Laurent Gaudé (First World War) - Sigmarigen, Pierre Assouline (World War II) - Avant que les ombres s’effacent, Louis-Philippe Dalembert (Second World War) - Où j'ai laissé mon âme, Jérôme Ferrari (Second World War & Algerian War) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0101-56L | From Cotton to Cocaine: Commodities That Made History (c.1700-1950) | W | 3 credits | 2V | H. Fischer-Tiné | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Each session focuses on a particular commodity and explores how its production, trade and consumption was entangled with important political, social and cultural developments. Taken together, the case studies (ranging from agricultural crops, via chemically produced drugs to mechanical marvels such as the gramophone) provide a picture of major global transformations in the past 300 years. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | On one level, the course aims to familiarise students with a currently much debated approach to the writing of global history, namely the history of commodities. Each case study is used to deepen the participants' understanding of complex historical developments by telling seemingly simple stories in a global frame. Thus, for instance, the session on sugar explores plantation economies in the Caribbean and the transatlantic slave trade as well as shifting patterns of diet and consumption in Europe. The session on rubber focuses on botanical expeditions in Latin America, the deployment of Chinese coolies on Malaysian Rubber farms and the rise of the automobile mass production in the USA. By linking the familiar to the unfamiliar and 'exotic' the inter-cultural sensitivity of the students will be enhanced. On a second level, the analysis and understanding of these complex interconnections, it is hoped, will help students to get a more nuanced understanding of the historical process that is currently referred to as 'globalization' and overcome the eurocentric perspective that still structures many scholarly and media writings on this topic. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0125-65L | A Sampler of Histories and Philosophies of Mathematics Particularly suitable for students D-CHAB, D-INFK, D-ITET, D-MATH, D-PHYS | W | 3 credits | 2V | R. Wagner | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | This course will review several case studies from the ancient, medieval and modern history of mathematics. The case studies will be analyzed from various philosophical perspectives, while situating them in their historical and cultural contexts. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | The course aims are: 1. To introduce students to the historicity of mathematics 2. To make sense of mathematical practices that appear unreasonable from a contemporary point of view 3. To develop critical reflection concerning the nature of mathematical objects 4. To introduce various theoretical approaches to the philosophy and history of mathematics 5. To open the students' horizons to the plurality of mathematical cultures and practices | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0453-00L | Artificial Intelligence and Human Values | W | 3 credits | 2G | M. Boenig-Liptsin, K. Wodajo | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | This course introduces students to the ethical, political and legal debates and transformations in relation to Artificial Intelligence and provides students with concepts and methods from the constructivist and interpretive social sciences to work towards responsible and democratic human-technology futures. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | The main objectives of the course are to enable students to 1) identify the ways in which human values and developments of AI technologies are entangled, 2) articulate what is significant about contemporary transformations in AI and society, and 3) participate and shape the relationship between human values and AI as citizens and professionals. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | The growing presence of AI tools for public use, for public administration, inside corporations and in scientific research raises many questions about the ethical, political, legal consequences of these technologies. This course is built around multiple sites of encounter among human values and AI, including bodies, persons, cities, labs, law, and environment. In each site, we inquire about what and whose values are being prioritized and with what consequences. The course also investigates existing best-practices around how to "align" human values with AI (e.g. human-centric design, alignment, reproducibility, transparency, explainability) and introduces students to regimes of ethics and governance of AI being proposed in jurisdictions around the world. Students learn to unpack the values and assumptions in existing techniques and frameworks for the design and governance of AI and to engage constructively with diverse stakeholders to shape the human-technology future towards aims that are reflexive, responsible, and democratic. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0157-28L | Life and Death Particularly suitable für students of D-BIOL, D-HEST, D-CHAB, D-USYS | W | 3 credits | 2V | M. Hagner | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | This course explores the relation 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0540-00L | Of Stainless Steel and Biocompatible Ink. History of Materials Science Does not take place this semester. Autorin der Kursbeschreibung Rachele Delucchi | W | 3 credits | 2S | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | The seminar examines the history of materials science. Why and how were materials characterized, developed and tested? How did things as diverse as wood, concrete, ceramics and polymers become objects of a single discipline? How did social imaginaries and technical conditions affect scientific work with and on materials? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Students learn to critically read and interpret different types of texts. They will be familiarised with the interdependencies of technical, scientific and social change. They reflect on (material) scientific practices. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | The seminar discusses the socio-technical conditions and effects of materials research from a historical perspective in the 20th century. We observe physicists, chemists and engineers, as well as concrete, foams and electron microscopes, in research laboratories and materials testing institutes, in articles and patents. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0541-00L | Truth and Historical Injustice: The Production of Knowledge about Past Mass Atrocities | W | 3 credits | 2V | S. M. Scheuzger | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | The course deals with the scientific production of knowledge about past mass atrocities. It looks at the interplay of different disciplines, methods and technological means that have been involved in this production over time. Further, it poses the question of what truth can mean in this context. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | The students a) know the main features of the discussion about the truth in the reconstruction of past events; b) have an understanding of the interplay, but also the coexistence of different scientific methods and technological means in the multidisciplinary production of knowledge about past mass crimes; c) have knowledge of important processes of dealing with past mass crimes from the second half of the 20th century onwards. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | When discussing the truthfulness of the academic study of the past, politically and ideologically motivated mass crimes are often cited as historical events in order to substantiate the necessity of a claim to truth. In doing so, moral arguments can be made or historical truth can be asserted as a basic prerequisite for living together in a democratic society under constitutional conditions. The production of knowledge about past atrocities has always been an endeavour in which various scientific disciplines have been involved. The multidisciplinary character of the production of knowledge about mass crimes has become even more accentuated since the second half of the 20th century, not least due to the emergence of new technological possibilities. The course offers a brief introduction to the discussion about the meaning of truth about past events. It looks at how different scientific approaches - from the humanities to the natural sciences - have been involved in coming to terms with mass crimes and how they have been related to each other. It deals with the question of what role certain techniques and technologies have played in the production of knowledge about past atrocities and how this has changed over time. These techniques and technologies range from the evaluation of documents and the taking of testimonies to specialised database programs, genetic analysis or imaging techniques, to digital technologies for the procurement of information on social media and the internet or for the modelling of past events. In addressing these questions, the course looks at processes of dealing with the past from the middle of the 20th century to the 21st century in Europe, Latin America and Africa. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0202-00L | Digital Humanities: Methods, Challenges, Perspectives | W | 3 credits | 2V | M. Lepper | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | In the 21st century, the humanities and the social sciences are undergoing a ground-breaking transformation: Data-driven, collaborative projects open up new opportunities. Which are the promises and the challenges of digital methods? The lecture series provides an overview of the latest developments. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | — exploring the most important theoretical and methodological approaches since 2000 — understanding terms and procedures — using digital texts, images and metadata —reflecting on the conditions, opportunities and problems of digital methods | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | The possibilities (Franco Moretti, Graphs, Maps, Trees, Verso 2005; Andrew Piper, Enumerations, Chicago UP 2018) and pitfalls (Franco Moretti, The Wrong Move, Konstanz UP 2022) of cultural history under digital conditions require critical reflection and evaluation. The lecture will explore showcases and pioneering work, annotated texts, images, metadata and interfaces provided by libraries, archives and museums. Research approaches and practical applications will be presented and evaluated. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0297-00L | Manipulation in Literature and Cultural History | W | 3 credits | 2V | S. S. Leuenberger | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | This lecture focuses on the manipulation and control of individuals and the masses. The power of manipulation is based on subtle use of persuasive linguistic elements and knowledge of the desires and fears of the intended audience. In addition to a theoretical overview, the lecture concentrates on the literary and discursive texts that dispute the control of protagonists. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Students will learn about manipulation as a linguistic and narrative phenomenon steeped in myth and classical rhetoric. Against the backdrop of cultural-historical developments, particularly with regard to major changes in media technology, we will examine how the reach of manipulation was extended from the individual to the masses. Students will be able to refine their critical discourse analysis skills and interdisciplinary abilities by studying texts from literature, politics, sociology, philosophy and psychoanalysis which reflect this shift in emphasis. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | Since the dawn of time mankind has tried to exert influence over others through the utilisation of certain techniques: initially for self-preservation – for example the interpretation of Sigmund Freud in Totem und Tabu. Later, desire became the driving force – centre stage: the desire for pleasure, power and control. Manipulation manifests itself in the form of characters and words, it is an authentically linguistic occurrence: classical antiquity, with the rhetoric, develops a system of verbal power of persuasion and, already then, questions were being raised in literary and discursive texts about how people could, or even should, manipulate. The exertion of influence and its impact will be clearly described, propagated, commented upon, criticised and ironised. In contrast to oppressive overpowering, the power of manipulation (in Latin, manus hand, plere fill) is on the one hand, based on the subtle use of persuasive linguistic elements – it is always a (literary) discourse, too – and on the other, on knowing precisely what the fantasies, desires and fears of the manipulated are. The discourse of manipulation has its beginnings in the age of sophists and their belief in an omnipotence of language and rhetoric. It underwent further transformation under political and psychological signs in the early modern period through Giordano Bruno and Niccolò Machiavelli and culminated in the 20th century in a critique of the deception strategies of the “culture industry” (T.W Adorno) and “psychotechnology” (B. Stiegler) in global capitalism. Nowadays social media is the “radicalisation machine” (J. Ebner) that present new challenges for society. Written in the 19th century, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion already gave indications of how present-day conspiracy theorists would manipulate their audience, and its impact can still be felt today. Since manipulation is a linguistic, narrative and also literary phenomenon, the central theme of the lecture is how in literature itself this often politically controversial and manipulative behaviour is picked up and reflected through poetry: such as in Tristan from Gottfried von Strassburg, Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, Friedrich Schiller’s Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua or Heinrich von Kleist’s Der zerbrochne Krug, the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Mann (Mario und der Zauberer) and, most recently in Eckhart Nickel’s novel, Hysteria. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0527-00L | Introduction to the History of Technology: Concepts, and Current Debates Does not take place this semester. | W | 3 credits | 2V | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0226-00L | Postcolonial Readings Does not take place this semester. | W | 3 credits | 2V | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | The history of colonialism in the modern age begins with Christopher Columbus who, as Todorov has well told us, did not "discover" anything, but crossed the Ocean in search of riches, bringing with him a baggage of violence, stereotypes and violent conquest of resources and bodies. And from here, from that 1492, the story became one of blood and struggle. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | The course will be based on case studies, linked to national realities (Brazil, Senegal, Eritrea, Great Britain, Italy, Peru, Somalia, etc.) and to physical places (the front, the museum, the field, the street, the body), to see how in different contexts, despite the peculiarity of the context, the dilemmas that are attempted to be answered are in fact very similar. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | WE are here, because YOU have been there, have you ever heard that phrase? In a university lecture hall? In an anti-racist demonstration? In a play? In a discussion on the bus? The YOU represents Europe and in a broader sense the West, the WE the peoples who suffered colonization by the very West that portrayed itself as a beacon of civilization. The history of colonialism in the modern age begins with Christopher Columbus who, as Todorov has well told us, did not "discover" anything, but crossed the Ocean in search of riches, bringing with him a baggage of violence, stereotypes and violent conquest of resources and bodies. And from here, from that 1492, the story became one of blood and struggle. It is a story that has covered a time span from precisely 1492 to the present, ranging from human trafficking to the extractive, and accumulation, policies of our contemporary times. The consequences of all this violence are sadly still visible on the body of the world, open wounds that bleed. Wounds in which lurk prejudice, systemic racism and murder. To examine these consequences, to understand how contemporary societies in the global north and south, are still torn apart by this history that never seems to pass; we will rely on literature, on "postcolonial" texts that will show us the complexity of what exists. The course will be based on case studies, linked to national realities (Brazil, Senegal, Eritrea, Great Britain, Italy, Peru, Somalia, etc.) and to physical places (the front, the museum, the field, the street, the body), to see how in different contexts, despite the peculiarity of the context, the dilemmas that are attempted to be answered are in fact very similar. The lecture will examine the body of the colonized/migrant as a field of battle and resistance in real and metaphorical wars. Place where the stereotype is overthrown through a will for personal agency. Colonial space and the consequent postcolonial space is a hierarchical space where instruments of violence and oppression do not provide for the agency of the colonized subject or in the contemporary case of the migrant subject placed by power structures in a space of subalternity. But subjects are born free and though in a confined space seek their own path to freedom and awareness. In ways that are perhaps paradoxical in our eyes, but certainly effective in a very limited space granted. In the three lectures, through literary texts, three case studies related to as many books will be examined to understand precisely this tension between enclosed space and the search for freedom. A tension between (unjust) rules imposed, malevolent looks imposed and one's own body, one's own moral integrity. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0549-00L | WebClass Introductory Course History of Technology Particularly suitable for students D-BAUG, D-INFK, D-ITET, D-MATL, D-MAVT. | W | 3 credits | 2V | R. Wichum | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Technology stands for innovation and catastrophes; it works as a dream machine and is associated with the most diverse ways of utilization. In WebClass Introductory Course History of Technology students become familiar with explanations for how technology works within complex economic, political and cultural contexts, by interpreting and researching texts and authoring a student manual. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Students are introduced into how technological innovations take place within complex economic, political and cultural contexts. They get to know basic theories and practices of the field by acquiring the skills to interpret texts, to compare arguments, to research additional sources and complementary material and to author a common essay. All of this will yield into a student manual on the four core topics: technology and innovation, technology and catastrophes, technology as a dream machine and technology and association. The course language is German, and even if many texts will be in English, the ability to read and understand German is mandatory. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | Technik steht für Innovation und Katastrophen, sie dient als Wunschmaschine und ist mit unterschiedlichsten Nutzungsformen assoziiert. Die WebClass Technikgeschichte ist ein webgestützter Einführungskurs, der um diese technikhistorischen Grundthemen kreist. Technikgeschichte untersucht Angebote technischer Entwicklungen, die in bestimmten historischen Kontexten entstanden und von sozialen Gruppen oder ganzen Gesellschaften als Möglichkeit sozialen Wandels wahrgenommen, ausgehandelt und schliesslich genutzt oder vergessen wurden. Die Studierenden lernen, sich in jene Aushandlungsprozesse einzudenken, die soziotechnische Veränderungen stets begleiten. Sie interpretieren Texte, vergleichen Argumente, recherchieren alte und neue Darstellungen und verfassen in Gruppen einen Beitrag zu ihrem eigenen Manual der Technikgeschichte. Der Onlinekurs wird von zwei obligatorischen Präsenzveranstaltungen – einer Einführungssitzung und einem Redaktionsmeeting – begleitet. Die aktive Teilnahme und das erfolgreiche Bearbeiten von Onlineaufgaben (Verfassen von Texten) werden vorausgesetzt. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lecture notes | Informationen zur Arbeit mit der WebClass Technikgeschichte finden Sie unter https://www.tg.ethz.ch/programme/lehrprogramm/webclass-einfuehrungskurs/. Sobald Sie eingeschrieben sind, haben Sie Zugang zum Online-Kurs auf Moodle mit den Aufgaben und den weiterführenden Materialien. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Number | Title | Type | ECTS | Hours | Lecturers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 851-0360-00L | The Tower of Babel: From Babylon to Babel Fish | W | 3 credits | 2V | P. Gerard | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | "Will the vocabularies never cease clashing/Werden die Wörterbücher immer streiten/Will the bickerwords never grow silent." - Eugene Jolas, "Babel: 1940" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | To situate contemporary discussions of machine translation in relation to earlier literary and philosophical reflections on the problem of linguistic diversity. To gain familiarity with historical origins of machine translation and the stages of its development until the present. To draw historical, thematic, and conceptual connections between the emergence of machine translation in the middle of the twentieth century and the impulses driving post-war literary and theoretical texts. To apply information theory to the analysis of literary texts. To use literary texts to interrogate the operation of telecommunications systems and the assumptions on which those systems rest. To practice inter- and intra-linguistic translation and confront the problem of "the untranslatable." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | There’s a story about an astounding feat of technological ingenuity and collective action. All the earth is bound together in a project of unprecedented scope, whose full implications exceed what finite, human minds can comprehend. The power unleashed by frictionless communication, collaboration, and innovation promises to transform them into gods. But the project derails spectacularly: the synergy of the corporate body fragments into warring, mutually incomprehensible interests, tribes, nations. In the end, the very technology with which they hoped to transcend their provincialism is repurposed as a weapon that each clan turns against the other. This could easily be a cautionary tale about social media, machine translation, and the Tech Giants that preside over the collective, digitized labor of humanity. In fact, it is an old fable about a city, a tower, and a Babylonian “giant” named Nimrod. The story of Babel and its tower occupies only nine verses of the Hebrew Bible. These nine verses, which detail how over the course of a? massive project the one, common language of humanity splintered into a host of mutually incomprehensible tongues, have cast a long shadow across world literature. This course will track the sweep of this shadow across several languages and literatures, lingering over several moments in the story’s two-thousand-year history of transmission and translation--from Dante’s treatise on the vernacular to Early Modern “language projectors” to Romantic philosophy and philology. The final unit of our course will examine the 19th and 20th-century tendency to recast of Babel’s tower of bricks as a vertiginous tower of texts. We will conclude the semester by discussing how the old story about a high tower reverberates in the present enthusiasm for Large Language Models. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 851-0281-00L | The Knowledge of Poetry | W | 3 credits | 2V | C. Jany | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Novalis once described poetry as "the mind's inherent way of acting". Thinking takes place in verses and images, rather than concepts and formulas. If this were true, every spontaneous cognition would amount to poetry and each thought essentially to a poem -- a structure combining and concentrating ideas, perceptions, and emotions. Knowledge and poetry would be one. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Such is the promise literature has made since its inception, a promise we will examine in this class by considering mainly lyrical compositions in verse, from the beginnings to the present. The central question is: What do poems know and what is the relationship between thinking in verse and technical and scientific knowledge? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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