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851-0035-00L 3 Credits DS , DR , MSC D-GESS

Life Sciences in Agricultural Development: A Global Environmental History Approach

Lecturers & Examiners: Dr. Tomas Bartoletti
VVZ CR n/a

Last Updated: 2026-06-01 11:33:17

Abstract

The seminar explores the history of life sciences in contexts of agricultural development during the 20th century. It offers an overview of recent approaches in global history and environmental humanities while providing an analytical framework to understand global processes of natural resource exploitation, scientific innovation, knowledge formation, and imperialism.

Objective

Students will learn about the global histories of agricultural sciences and the transformation of the countryside. They will critically reflect on the profit and market conditions that designed agricultural innovations. By integrating new materialist approaches and the new history of capitalism, students will develop skills aligned with their interests in “agricultural improvements”.

Content

How can we make bigger cows? How can we produce cotton varieties that resist fungal invasion? How can we grow sweeter oranges? How can we establish a palm oil plantation without any insect pests? Questions of productivity, marketability, and profitability, like these, have been at the core of life sciences and agricultural development during the twentieth century. These questions have deeply shaped knowledge formation and material practices in the global countryside. The emergence of “applied” life sciences, supported by economic interests, played a transformative role in the way “Nature” was seen as a resource, leading to radical alterations of environments, species, and ecological conditions. Addressing the complexity of actors, institutions, and practices, the seminar explores “agricultural innovations,” such as transgenic plants, cattle breeding, and the use of fertilizers, from a global historical perspective. This exploration encompasses a critical and relational understanding of the history of life sciences and the processes of economic improvement and agricultural production. To achieve this, students will learn how biological and environmental factors were challenged by novelties in life sciences and agriculture, reflecting a particular modern conception of nature influenced by ideas of human domestication and control. Moreover, students will examine how ways of knowing about chicken, cocoa, wool, and many other species-commodities, from both biological and economic perspectives, were shaped by broader correlated aspirations for profit and market. Focusing on the intersections of life sciences and “agricultural innovations,” the aim of this seminar is to critically reflect on the ways non-human actors and environments were transformed by research in life sciences based on economic management and agricultural development.

General Information

Language
English
Levels
DS , DR , MSC

Examination

Type
graded semester performance

Registration & Places

Max Places
60

Course Components

Type Title Time & Place Hours
seminar Life Sciences in Agricultural Development: A Global Environmental History Approach
Block course
  • 28.02 Date 10:15-14:00 (CHN F 42)
  • 14.03 Date 10:15-16:00 (HG D 1.2)
  • 28.03 Date 10:15-16:00 (CHN F 42)
  • 04.04 Date 08:15-12:00 (CHN F 42)
  • 05.06 Date 10:15-14:00 (ML F 34)
  • 20.06 Date 10:15-14:00 (CHN F 42)
28 h semesterly

Offered In