HSSuisse

Connecting Switzerland based early career scholars in the History of Science

2025

We are pleased to invite you to the sixth HSSuisse meeting on 5 December 2025, organized by Sarine Waltenspül and Mario Schulze. The meeting will take place at the University of Lucerne (Frohburgstrasse 3, 6002 Luzern, Room 3.B58) and is hosted by the Ambizione project Visualpedia and the Chair of Science Studies.

Program

09:45 Welcome

Christoph Hoffmann, Sarine Waltenspül (Universität Luzern) and Mario Schulze (Universität Basel)

10:00-11:30 Panel 1

Chair: Dania Achermann (Universität St. Gallen)

  • Simon Lindner (Universität Basel)
    The Romantic Appropriation of Police Science

  • Elena Schaa (Universität Basel)
    A Stroke of Genius? The Cultural Roots of Heisenberg’s “Breakthrough” on Helgoland

  • Julien Gressot (Université de Neuchatel)
    Sydney de Coulon (1889-1976): industrie horlogère, politiques d’innovation et développement technoscientifique

12:00-13:30 Panel 2

Chair: Kris Decker (Universität Luzern)

  • David Bucheli (Universität Basel)
    Inkblots in the High Alps. Roland Kuhn’s Rorschach Experiments at Jungfraujoch 1942/43

  • Mirjam Mayer (ETH Zürich)
    High-Tech Trace Search: Archaeology and the Technoscientific Configuration of the Past in the Second Half of the 20th Century

  • Magnus Rust (Universität Basel)
    When Computers Were Antihistorians

13:30-14:30 Lunch

14:30–16:00 Panel 3: Epistemologies of Peace in the Cold War. Scientific Perspectives on Aggression, Education, and Social Coexistence

Chair: Susanne Schmidt (Universität Basel)

  • Carla Seemann (HU Berlin/Universität des Saarlandes)
    Epistemologies of Peace in the Cold War: Scientific Perspectives on Aggression, Education, and Social Coexistence

  • Cécile Hauser (LMU München)
    Peace Despite Aggression? Peace Researchers in Germany Debating the “Aggressive Drive” Around 1970

  • Hannah Kressig (MPIWG Berlin/HU Berlin)
    “Make Love, Not War”-Apes: Bonobos as a Model for Peaceful Coexistence in Late Twentieth Century

16:30-17:30 Panel 4

Chair: Jérôme Baudry (EPFL)

  • Simon Lobach (Universität Wien/Université de Genève)
    Humans and Microbes Mining Together: Biomining from Secret Alchemy to New Common

  • Anna Lytvynova (ETH Zürich)
    Reflecting Controversies: Epistemologies of Studying Blockchain and Other Politically Charged Technologies

  • Ulrike Kiessling and Raffaele Perniola (Universität Basel)
    Discussion: Who Speaks, Who Listens? Colonial Sound Archives, Gnosis, and the Making of Knowledge about Africa

18:15-19:30 Keynote

Charlotte Bigg (Centre Alexandre Koyré Paris)
What is a scientific conference, why study it and how?

View speaker bio

Charlotte Bigg is an historian of science trained in history and history of science at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, UK. She worked at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin and at ETH Zurich before joining the French CNRS, Centre Alexandre Koyré, in 2009. She has published widely on the visual and material cultures of the sciences and their circulations across different sites and communities, from the late eighteenth century to now. She is or has recently been co-PI of collective projects investigating the scientific conference, the photo-library and geological collections. Charlotte also regularly advises museums and contributes to exhibitions, such as, currently the Palais de la découverte in Paris.

20:00 Dinner

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