HUM-402 / 3 credits

Teacher(s): Mihailescu Ion-Gabriel, Dumas Primbault Simon François

Language: English

Remark: Une seule inscription à un cours SHS+MGT autorisée. En cas d'inscriptions multiples elles seront toutes supprimées sans notification.


Summary

This course will introduce students to recent works and advancements in the history of science which will provide them with the necessary background to articulate historical questions and to understand the role played by material objects and tacit, technical skills in the production of knowledge.

Content

Keywords

re-enactment, past experiments, learning by doing, history of science, practices, artefacts, tacit knowledge

POLY-perspective :

  • creative perspective
  • interdisciplinary perspective

https://www.epfl.ch/schools/cdh/cdhs-vision/

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the student must be able to:

  • Identify important research questions in the history of science.
  • Formulate a problematic and hypothesis.
  • Analyze historical sources.
  • Interpret historical artefacts.
  • Assess / Evaluate the tacit and technical skills involved in the production of knowledge.
  • Critique historical accounts and their own scientific skills and practice.
  • Construct an argument

Transversal skills

  • Communicate effectively with professionals from other disciplines.
  • Assess progress against the plan, and adapt the plan as appropriate.
  • Access and evaluate appropriate sources of information.

Teaching methods

The course relies on the teaching method of “learning by doing”. We consider this to be a particularly appropriate method for imparting knowledge about the history of science. 

Fall semester: lecture, discussion, presentation and practical work.

Expected student activities

Students are expected to attend lectures and laboratory, read the assigned articles, and participate actively to discussions. Students will prepare short reports or presentations based on their historical laboratory work. At the end of the Fall semester students will present a written proposal for the Spring semester project.

Assessment methods

Independent evaluation at the end of both the autumn and spring term (grade associated to 3 ECTS).

Autumn term:

  • Discussion (30%)
  • Lab Reports and presentations (40%)
  • Project Proposal (30%)

All work can be presented in either English or French.

Supervision

Office hours Yes
Assistants No
Forum Yes
Others

Resources

Bibliography

Research articles, depend on the project to be performed. Information and skills to find the literature in the course of the autumn term. Additional bibliographical references will be put online on the Moodle of the course.

  • Long, Pamela O. Artisan/Practitioners and the Rise of the New Sciences, 1400-1600. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2011.
  • Polanyi, Michael. The Tacit Dimension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
  • Fors, Hjalmar, Lawrence H. Principe, and H. Otto Sibum. “From the Library to the Laboratory and Back Again: Experiment as a Tool for Historians of Science.” Ambix, 63(2):85-97, 2016.
  • Smith, Pamela H., Amy R. W. Meyers, and Harold J. Cook, eds. Ways of Making and Knowing: The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014.

Ressources en bibliothèque

Moodle Link

Videos

In the programs

  • Semester: Fall
  • Number of places: 33
  • Exam form: During the semester (winter session)
  • Subject examined: Experimental history of science I
  • Lecture: 2 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Project: 1 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks

Reference week

 MoTuWeThFr
8-9     
9-10     
10-11     
11-12     
12-13     
13-14     
14-15     
15-16     
16-17     
17-18     
18-19     
19-20     
20-21     
21-22