Martina Heßler (TU Darmstadt) speaks at the IEG Colloquium on 18 February 2025.
Martina Heßler’s new book Sisyphos im Maschinenraum is published in February. At the Colloquium of the Leibniz Institute of European History, she will speak on “Flawed Human Beings and Superior Technology? The History of a Techno-Chauvinist Comparison”. You can join the event digitally here on Webex.
In the light of new technologies such as digitalisation and artificial intelligence research, the human-machine relationship is on the current agenda, as what is considered human seems to be up for debate. Professor Heßler in her work examines the historical changes of human beings through and with technology. She is Professor of the History of Technology at the TU Darmstadt. Before moving there in 2019, she was Professor of Cultural and Technological History at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach (2006-2009) and Professor of Modern Social, Economic and Technological History at the Helmut Schmidt University of the Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg (2010-2019).
Martina Heßler’s publications include „Mrs. Modern Woman“. Zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte der Haushaltstechnisierung (2nd ed. 2024) and „Die kreative Stadt“: Zur Neuerfindung eines Topos (2007). She also co-edited Technikanthropologie. Handbuch für Wissenschaft und Studium (2020) which provides an overview of the approaches, methods and topics of a historical anthropology of technology.
Join here on 18 February at 4 p.m. (CET).