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851-0357-00L 3 Credits DS D-GESS

Breathing Today. An Investigation into Landscapes, Arts and Struggles

Respirer aujourd’hui. Une enquête dans les paysages, les arts et les luttes

Lecturers & Examiners: Dr. Marielle Macé
VVZ CR n/a

Last Updated: 2026-02-05 16:15:41

Abstract

A frankly unbreathable atmosphere is becoming our ordinary environment. Everyone feels it: we lack oxygen, health, calm, real connections, justice and joy. Because to breathe you need air, but you also need a whole quality of links, landscapes, futures and metamorphoses.

Objective

How can we fight to detoxify our daily lives, this means also to fraternize in breathing, and to breathe at last with the others? This involves our ways of living in our territories, of thinking about the health of bodies and environments, the atmosphere, work, the city, the house, and even our ways of speaking or dreaming.

Content

A frankly unbreathable atmosphere is becoming our ordinary environment. Everyone feels it: we lack oxygen, health, calm, real connections, justice and joy. It has almost become our natural condition (the characteristic of intoxicated environments almost everywhere), aggravated by a pandemic that attacks the respiratory system; our political condition too, crossed by violence and discrimination; our psychic condition itself: the breathlessness that comes from our violent tiredness, and from the cost of adjusting to an overheated world. How can we fight to detoxify our daily lives, this means also to fraternize in breathing, and to breathe at last with the others? This involves our ways of living in our territories, of thinking about the health of bodies and environments, the atmosphere, work, the city, the house, and even our ways of speaking or dreaming. Because to breathe you need air, but you also need a whole quality of links, landscapes, futures and metamorphoses: many other existences with which to breathe, in which to hope, and which can breathe in you.

General Information

Language
French
Levels
DS

Examination

Type
graded semester performance

Course Components

Type Title Time & Place Hours
lecture Respirer aujourd’hui. Une enquête dans les paysages, les arts et les luttes
  • Tue 14:15-18:00 (IFW C 42)
2 h weekly

Offered In

  • 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 Competence (SiP 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.)