Prof.
Basile
Zimmermann
Professeur assistant
Tel.: +41 22 379 7240
Rue Gutenberg 6, 1201 Geneva, Switzerland
Research and publications
Contemporary China, Science and Technology Studies, Sociology of Art
Books
Common Chinese Characters, with Nicolas Zufferey. Paris : Youfeng, 2007 (160 p.)
The Impact of Western Technology on Chinese Culture: Beijing Electronic Musicians Practices as Observation Field of the Relationship Between Technical Objects and Artistic Creation, PhD thesis, Cyberthèses, University of Geneva, 2006 (318 p.) [in French]. See also the presentation Technology and Cultural Difference at Lift10, and the Interview by the Swiss National Television History of Knowledge, Outstanding Swiss young scientists series[in French].
Papers
"L'utilisation de la bande dessinée pour montrer l'action des objets techniques", in Howard Becker et les mondes de l'art, edited by Pierre-Jean Benghozi et Thomas Paris (forthcoming).
"Materiality, Description and Comparison as Tools for Cultural Difference Analysis", in Companion to New Media Dynamics, edited by John Hartley, Jean Burgess and Axel Bruns (forthcoming).
"La Chine aujourd'hui: Techniques d'analyse du présent", with Nadia Sartoretti. Etudes Asiatiques (forthcoming).
“Analyzing Social Networking Web Sites: The Design of Happy Network 开心网 in China” In Global Design History, edited by Glenn Adamson, Giorgio Riello, and Sarah Teasley, 153-62. New York: Routledge, 2011.
“Redesigning Culture: Chinese Characters in Alphabet-Encoded Networks”, Design and Culture (Berg Publishers), vol. 2-1 (2010), pp. 27-43.
“Words of the First Level [in French]”. In G. Poizat, Contemporary Chinese Vocabulary I, 135-163. Paris: L'Asiathèque, 2008.
"The Containers Approach : An Inductive Method to look at Cultural Difference in a Technological Environment." Poster presentation, World Knowledge Dialogue, Crans-Montana, Switzerland, September 10-13, 2008 (Best Poster Contribution Award).
"Doing Chinese Studies at the Crossroads of Grounded Theory and Actor-Network-Theory." 7th International Conference on Social Science Methodology, Cd-rom (Balbi S, ed.), Naples, Italy, 2008.
“Uncovering Cultural Issues in the Internet of Things: A Design Method.” Paper presented at the Internet of Things 2008 (Social-IoT Workshop, Designing the Internet of Things for Workplace Realities: Social and Cultural Aspects in Design and Organisation), Adjunct Proceedings, Florian Michahelles (Ed.), pp. 100-104, Zurich, 2008.
«Tracing the Action of Technical Objects in an Ethnography: Vinyls in Beijing », In Qualitative Sociology Review, Vol. III Issue 3 (2007), pp. 22-45.
«When the Chinese Teach Us What Technology is Really About»Towards a Knowledge Society: Is Knowledge a Public Good?, ESSHRA Conference proceedings, Bern 12-13th of June 2007.
«Technology is Culture: Two Paradigms». In Leonardo Music Journal, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press), 15.1 (2005), pp. 53-57.
«Technology's Attitude Toward The Chinese: Synthesizers, Music Software and Turntables in Contemporary Beijing», Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations 2004, Science and Technology Workshop proceedings, Shanghai, 18-21of August, 2004 (19 p.)