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Wissenschaft – Technologie – Gesellschaft


WTG (Wissenschaft – Technologie – Gesellschaft / Science – Technology – Society) is a teaching program offering courses to all students at the University of Freiburg. Courses taught under WTG aim to explore how science and technology shape society, how they affect our lives, and how we, in turn, shape them.

WTG sponsors courses that are proposed, designed, and co-taught by students, as well as courses independently developed and taught by experienced teachers and researchers.

In these seminars, students explore together with experts how science, technology and society are intertwined and mutually dependent. Together with their fellow students from many different subjects, students have the opportunity to ask questions that are otherwise overlooked in their studies and to think about what developments in the fields of the life sciences, environmental sciences, and digitalization both are shaped by society and are society-shaping.

WTG is directed by the Professorship in Science and Technology Studies, in cooperation with the University College Freiburg and the Zentrum für Schlüsselqualifikationen.

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Summer Semester 2025 Courses

Introduction to Science and Technology Studies (2 SWS, 3 ECTS, Lecture only, 00LE62S-WTG-001000).

Science and technology are defining characteristics of our world. But how is scientific knowledge made, how are technologies developed? What impacts do these have on our lives and the lives of others, and in what ways do human choices shape science and technology?

This course explores science and technology not as bodies of knowledge or collections of artifacts, but rather as social practices and processes. In it, we will examine the interrelationships among science, technology, and society in historical and contemporary contexts, with the aim of better understanding the embeddedness of scientific and technical activities within society.

Because Science and Technology Studies (STS) is an eclectic and wide-ranging field of inquiry that resists clean theoretical summary, the course will not be organized as a tour of major canonical theories within science and technology studies. Instead, lectures will explore how STS can help provide a deeper understanding of all-too-easily taken-for-granted categories in public discourse, such as “science,” “technology,” “bodies,” “nature,” “experts,” and “disciplines.” Throughout our discussion, we will nonetheless highlight important schools of thought within STS as we draw on sources in the history of science and technology, the sociology of scientific knowledge, and the anthropology of science and technology.

Please note that this lecture-only version of the course does not fulfill the Science in Context module of the LAS study program.

The Bicycle (2 SWS, 6 ECTS, seminar, 00LE62S-WTG-002401).

This course is an homage to and intensive engagement with a ubiquitous and deceptively simple technology: the bicycle. It offers students the opportunity to explore the bicycle in an interdisciplinary fashion by looking at the history and cultural symbolism of the bicycle, technological transformations of the bicycle over the past two centuries, social scientific works on bicycles, and the science and engineering involved in getting the wheels to turn and the rider to stay riding. In examining these points, we will also uncover how societies shape technologies and vice versa. Throughout this short course, we will be hosting a number of guest speakers; read, watch, and listen to bicycle-related content; and have a hands-on maintenance session for beginners. Several excursions are planned. Participants do not need to own a bicycle or be able to ride a bike.