MILEN Research School Interdisciplinarity Seminar Series 2012, Part 1-3
Arresting environmental deterioration and achieving sustainable energy represent some of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. To take on this challenge we need to engage in interdisciplinary research, research that combines technical, political and social and environmental perspectives.
Part 1: Making buildings sustainable – an inter- and transdisciplinary challenge, with Harald Rochracher
This seminar will build on two interdisciplinary projects about sustainable buildings. The focus of these projects has been the role of users and other relevant actors such as architects, building societies, or building professionals in the shaping of sustainable building development (particularly passive houses and smart buildings) and in the translation of rather general visions of sustainability into concrete socio-material practices.
Part 2: Looking for interdisciplinarity in social-sciences researches on energy, with Francoise Bartiaux
In this talk, Bartiaux will present, and open to discussion, two different multi-disciplinary research projects that she led on energy and environment issues. In the first case, quite different disciplines were involved, namely sociology and engineering, and were sequentially used in the research. The second case is a more conceptual research and brought together at each step of the study (and for each sentence of the paper produced!) a sociologist, a philosopher and an anthropologist, thus from closer disciplines.
Part 3: Interdisciplinary work as a process-oriented development - Collegium Helveticum & Cortona Seminar Weeks , with Reinhard Nesper
In his seminar Nesper will outline interdisciplinary work in two areas he is personally involved in. Both share a long-term perspective but of quite different character:
- Collegium Helveticum is a common institution of ETH Zürich and the University of Zürich which was founded in 1997 as a forum of dialogue between the sciences with the objective of promoting a more in-depth discourse of natural and technical sciences with humanities and social sciences.
- The Cortona seminar week is a yearly activity which fosters opportunities for experiencing important aspects of life beyond individual expert fields, such as the humanities, spirituality, music and art and even body awareness as well as psychosomatic and emotional processes.