Mittwoch, 03. Dezember 2014, 17:00 - 19:00 iCal
Guest lecture Dr. Tania Munz
"Karl von Frisch and the Discovery of the Honeybee Dance Language – A Brief History": Guest lecture by Dr. Tania Munz, Northwestern University, USA
UZA II (Rotunde), Raum 2H360
Althanstraße 14, 1090 Wien
Vortrag
Through a series of experiments that spanned several decades, the experimental physiologist Karl von Frisch (1886-1982) discovered that honeybees communicate precise information about the distance and direction of food sources to their hive mates. These findings earned him international attention and a shared Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973. The news that an animal as lowly as the bee would use symbolic communication challenged existing notions of the animal-human boundary and was eagerly received across a range of disciplines in the post-war period; the honeybees transitioned over the course of the twentieth century from models for how a well-run social polity might function to one of the premier examples of non-human communication. But the enthusiasm surrounding von Frisch’s work elided the fraught circumstances under which it had taken place – despite the Nazi government declaring von Frisch one quarter Jewish in 1941, he continued to work in the German Reich and, indeed, performed some of his most important work with funding from the Nazi Ministry for Food and Agriculture. His work was neither racially motivated nor pseudo-scientific. Nonetheless, it was very much of its time and place. In this talk, I retrace the history of Karl von Frisch’s most famous discovery and show how the bee emerged in the post-war period as the most-studied example of non-human communication.
Dr. Tania Munz is a Weinberg College Adviser and Lecturer in Science in Human Culture at Northwestern University, USA.
About the DK "The Sciences in Historical, Philosophical and Cultural Contexts": Funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) it combines historical, philosophical and cultural studies of the sciences in international and transnational context and brings together the natural sciences and mathematics with the humanities in a common, focused curriculum. The aim of the program is the development and coordinated discussion of research in history, philosophy and cultural studies of the sciences, as well as the acquisition of skills needed for later professional success.
The program builds upon the Initiativkolleg entitled “The Sciences in Historical Context”, which was funded internally by the University of Vienna from 2006 to 2010, and upon experience acquired during the first period of FWF support from 2010 to 2014. Faculty members come from History, Philosophy, Physics, Life Sciences, and Mathematics. Central features of the program are: a structured curriculum including intensive conceptual and research seminars; interdisciplinary discussion and academic guidance in the weekly Colloquium; one semester of required study or research visits outside Austria; and, most importantly, joint supervision of dissertations by a historian or philosopher and a natural scientist or mathematician, so far as this is feasible.
Veranstalter
DK Naturwissenschaften im historischen, philosophischen und kulturellen Kontext
Um Anmeldung wird gebeten
Kontakt
MMMag. Ramon Pils
Institut für Geschichte
01 4277 40872
dksciences.geschichte@univie.ac.at
Erstellt am Donnerstag, 27. November 2014, 17:07
Letzte Änderung am Freitag, 28. November 2014, 08:29