Duration
30h SEM
Number of credits
Lecturer
Laurence Bouquiaux, Frédéric Claisse, Bruno Frère, Kim Hendrickx
Language(s) of instruction
French language
Organisation and examination
Teaching in the second semester
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
The seminar will be organised during the second period of the year . Laurence Bouquiaux, Frederic Claisse, Bruno Frère and Kim Hendrickx are in charge of this seminar. The aim of the seminar is to familiarize students with questions and issues that concern the place of scientific knowledge in contemporary societies. The 2025-2026 seminar will be dedicated to exploring the notion of nature (see below for more information).
The course is given in the form of seminars where the sessions are presented by the students themselves. The aim is not to help students memorise a subject but to encourage them to take up a question and prepare a presentation. This preparation is supervised by the teachers.
Consequently, there are no exams, and marks are awarded on the basis of an assessment by the teachers of the preparation and presentation of the presentation. Each group submits a written mark at the end of the period summarising its presentation.
THEME FOR THE YEAR 2026-2027
This year's theme will be modernity.
Having once been associated with the triumph of reason, freedom, and boldness against dogma and authority, modernity and so-called "modern" science are today frequently accused of complicity with the darkest chapters in human history: the death of nature and the plundering of the planet; human exceptionalism and the exploitation of living beings; colonialism and patriarchy; the development of a theory of knowledge that privileges the "view from nowhere" at the expense of all situated knowledge; the arrogance of the world of science, which disregards both the world of lived experience and that of values.
But what exactly is this "modernity"? And to begin with, when does it start (and, possibly, when does it end)? With the scientific revolution of the 17th century? With the Enlightenment philosophy of the 18th? With the Industrial Revolution? Have we now moved beyond modernity? Are we "postmodern"? Should we consider instead that "we have never been modern"? Are there different ways of being "modern," depending on the era or the place? What does modernity stand against? What happens when we "historicize" categories that modernity believed it had wrested away from history : reason, objectivity, nature? Why is modernity sometimes associated with progressive movements and emancipation, and at other times with conservative movements and strategies of domination or exploitation? Is modernity an ideal worth constantly fighting for, a call to freedom, creation, and innovation? Or is it, on the contrary, the name we give to the alienation of humanity by the machine and the destruction of nature by technology? Is it at the root of capitalism, or does it offer a resource for resisting it? With the advent of the "risk society," has modernity finally become conscious of its limits, or has this reflexivity in fact always accompanied industrial and technological development? What is there that is precious and liberating, or, on the contrary, perverse and destructive, in the idea of modernity?
The seminar will aim to untangle a few threads of this skein, while striving to avoid oversimplification and caricature.
This theme will be explored through four sub-themes, which have yet to be defined. Students enrolled in the seminar will be informed of the different sub-themes at the first session and will be asked to divide into subgroups according to these sub-themes to carry out the work described in the remainder of this teaching statement.
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
The seminar is based on an inverted classroom approach: students are divided into groups and each group prepares a presentation with the help of a teacher. The students are assessed on the basis of their presentation, so there is no final exam.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
A previous knowledge of basic epistemology or philosophy of sciences is higly recommended.
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Students will be in charge of organizing seminars on the basis of lectures or readings.
The main requirement on which students will be assessed is their ability to explain to the whole class what they have understood from the texts they have worked on. The clarity, pedagogical nature and liveliness of your presentation will be decisive. It is therefore not a question of reading or reciting summaries of what you have read, but of making your summary interesting by using a powerpoint (or an equivalent device).
Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)
Face-to-face course
Further information:
The seminar will be held in the second quarter. A total of six sessions are planned, but this number may change depending on the number of registrations.
ATTENDANCE IS COMPULSORY
As there is no final exam (see above), attendance at the sessions is compulsory. In concrete terms, except in duly justified cases, students who are absent from more than two sessions will not receive a mark.
Overlapping courses do not provide a justification for absence: if you have another course with compulsory attendance at the same time as the 'science and society' seminar, you must choose which of the two you wish to take.
Course materials and recommended or required readings
Platform(s) used for course materials:
- eCampus
Further information:
documents will be available
Exam(s) in session
Any session
- In-person
oral exam
- Remote
oral exam
Continuous assessment
Further information:
The evaluation will be based on the quality of the work done during workshops or seminars : quality of presentation, participation to to the discussion. Each student will have to produce a short synthesis document.
Work placement(s)
Organisational remarks and main changes to the course
see french version
Contacts
See French Version for adresses of teachers.