The main aim of the department is to further develop internationally recognized perspectives on the concept of technology. The objective, therefore, is to investigate and teach the emergence, development, evolution, and applicability of technique and technology, especially in the context of 'material culture'. In conformity with the aims of the institute, our department rejects a Eurocentric perspective and addresses these issues without prejudice and examines the history of technology in a more innovative approach, without restricting it to any period, region, or cultural basin, and considers the knowledge in this field as the common heritage of all humanity. With the aim of consolidating this perspective, our department allows both subject-based studies and wider and comparative research focusing on different periods and regions throughout the history.
Material culture is one of the bastions of the history of technology. Studies on the material culture have the potential to reveal the evidence of the actualization of theoretically established scientific knowledge more clearly than any other field in the history of science. These studies, however, requires moving between all branches of science in order to produce a sound argument regarding historical scientific endeavours. Due to this aspect as well as due to the broadscale nature of technology, our department is to collaborate with other fields of the history of science, philosophy, history, sociology, and many other disciplines that deal with the history of knowledge.
Our research and studies in the history of technology specifically covers historical scientific instruments, extant manuscripts and archival documents, and related archaeological finds. The current focus of research of our department is the scientific instruments that was constructed and/or used in the Islamic world between the 9th and 16th centuries. Studies on historical instrumentation require certain skills such as competency on source languages (e.g. Arabic, Persian, Latin...), familiarity with the historical technical terminology, and grasp of the related branch of science. Naturally, our department expects these skills to be present on its current and future researchers who are/will be participating in projects and studies in our framework.
Our department is a part of interdisciplinary graduate education within the institute. In this context, it offers graduate courses in many subjects in the history of technology. These include courses on the history of scientific instruments, comparative material culture, the concept of tekhne, and general history of technology.
Those who plan to study and research at graduate level at our department is expected to study in the following topics:
- The construction and use of the historical astronomical instruments
- The construction and use of the historical mathematical instruments
- The construction and use of the historical instruments in optics
- The construction and use of the historical mechanical instruments
- The role of scientific instruments in the development of the scientific knowledge
- Methodology in literature on scientific instrumentation
- Comparative studies on scientific instrumentation between the Islamic World and West
- Evolution of tekhné to technology
- Philosophy of technology