The professorship for "Impact History of Technology" deals with the historical background and consequences of technology genesis and mechanization processes. Technology emerges and takes effect in historically specific economic, social and political constellations; indeed, it was and is an expression of the cultural framework conditions of its time. The way we deal with technology is culturally shaped and, conversely, technical innovations change and shape the economic and social structures, everyday life, culture and thinking of the respective societies.
The history of the impact of technology takes a look at these processes from a historical and international comparative perspective.
Central topics are:
- Industrialization and deindustrialization processes in their historical conditions and consequences
- Technization processes and their effects on production, consumption, work, everyday life and culture
- processes of technological genesis and innovation, and thus also the emergence of technical knowledge, as well as the far-reaching economic, social, political and cultural consequences
- Social debates about technicization processes and, in this context, counter-movements to technicized modernity.
Of particular relevance is the "bridging character" of a history of the impact of technology between the different knowledge and science cultures of technology and natural sciences on the one hand and humanities and social sciences on the other. For a university like the University of Stuttgart, which strives for interdisciplinarity in research and teaching, this mediating function is of great importance.