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Chair of Technoscience Studies Univ.-Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Astrid Schwarz

Chairholder

Prof. Dr. Astrid Schwarz

Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Astrid Schwarz Chairholder

Astrid Schwarz has been Professor of General Technology Studies at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg since the beginning of 2017.

Prior to this, she worked as a lecturer at ETH Zurich in the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences (2014-2017) and as a research assistant at the Institute of Philosophy at TU Darmstadt (2002-2013).
During this time, she held deputy professorships at Friedrich Schiller University Jena (2012/13 Natural Philosophy) and Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (2010 Philosophy) as well as visiting professorships at Dalian University of Technology in China (2012, 2013) and in Paris at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (2011).

As a faculty member, she took part in summer and winter schools (e.g. 2013 ‘The Regulative Capacity of Knowledge Objects’ in San Sebastián, ‘Modes of Technoscientific Knowledge’ in Manigod, 2008 Converging Technologies in Alsfeld) and was invited as a visiting scholar by the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IHPST) in São Paulo (2010), the Institute for Geography at Durham University (2010) and the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) at the University of Canberra (2009). Faculty member at summer schools on philosophy of science at the Università di Padova, organised by Fabio Grigenti (Padova) and Alfred Nordmann (Darmstadt), together with other colleagues in 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2025.

 

Dr. Astrid Schwarz completed her habilitation in 2012 at TU Darmstadt. She holds a Venia legendi for Philosophy. Her habilitation treatise was published as a book in 2014 (Experiments in Practice, London: Routledge).

Her PhD, ‘Wasserwüste, Mikrokosmos, Ökosystem. Eine Eroberung des Wasserraumes’ (Freiburg: Rombach), was published in 2003. It was submitted at TU München (2000) and awarded Summa cum laude. 

During university studies, Dr. Schwarz took courses in biology, philosophy, and ethnography. Her diploma work was on experimental ecology (grade ‘very good’), and was partly published in the international journal Annales de Limnologie (1997). 

2007/06 | fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld (ZIF), research group ‘Science in the Context of Application: Methodological Change, Conceptual Transformation, Cultural Reorientation’

2002 | Grant of the Franco-Bavarian University Cooperation Center (BFHZ)

2002/01 | Post-Doc Grant MSH Paris (DAAD)

1998/97 | Grant by Frauenförderung TU München

1994 | Grants by Landesgraduiertenförderung Baden-Württemberg and Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst (not taken up)

1993 | 3-month Stipend DAAD (France)

Astrid Schwarz is a member of the following scientific associations:

  • European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST)
  • Society for Artistic Research
  • Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin, Naturwissenschaft und Technik (DGGMNT)
  • Swiss Artistic Research Network (SARN)
  • European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA)
  • Deutsche Gesellschaft für Limnologie (DGL)

Former and recent reviewing activities:

  • Science & Culture; Synthese; Philosophy & Technology; NanoEthics; Gaia: Ökologische Perspektiven für Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft; Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin (NTM); Environment and Planning; Area: Royal Society of Geography; Theory in Biosciences; MDPI Open Access, Sustainable Goal Development;
  • DFG; BMBF; Wissenschaftsfond FWF Wien; NSF Norway; European Commission; University of Chicago Press

On the Scientific Advisory Board of:

  • On the Scientific Advisory Board of: "Series of the DFG Graduate School - Identity and Heritage"
  • Book series “Philosophy of Technology”, edited by Klaus Kornwachs
  • Book series “History and Philosophy of Technoscience”, edited by Alfred Nordmann, Astrid Schwarz, Marco Tamborini

Editorial Boards:

Book Series History and Philosophy of Technoscience, Routledge

About the Book Series:

Even though technoscientific research is as old as alchemy and pharmacy, agricultural research and synthetic chemistry, philosophers of science and technology had little to say about it until recently. This book series is the first to explicitly accept the challenge to study not just technical aspects of theory development and hypothesis testing but the specific ways in which knowledge is produced in a technological setting. When one seeks to achieve basic capabilities of construction, manipulation, visualization, or predictive control, how are problems defined and research fields established, what kinds of explanations are sought, how are findings validated? Also, what are the contributions of different kinds of expertise, does technoscientific knowledge link up with indigenous traditions, tinkering, and ecological practices? How do epistemic, social and moral values shape the research process? Which ontologies does it evoke, which images  of reality, of the future and the past? And most importantly for civic observers of contemporary research: how is robustness and reliability achieved even in the absence of intellectual understanding?