Jean-François Bert

Jean-François Bert is Professor of Anthropology of Knowledge (science, belief, technology) at the University of Lausanne, Faculty of Theology and Sciences of Religions (FTSR), and a core member of the Institute for History and Anthropology of Religions (IHAR). A sociologist and historian of the social sciences, he is qualified to direct doctoral research and teaches courses that probe the historical and epistemological relations between science and religion.

Research Interests: Bert’s scholarship weaves together a material history of knowledge—tracing how places, apparatus, and everyday objects have shaped modern science—and a comparative anthropology of scholarly practices that highlights the embodied, tacit know-how of researchers across periods. His work interrogates the technologies of intellectual labor (statistics, tables, diagrams, maps, filing cards) and reframes canonical dichotomies such as theory vs. practice, expert vs. popular, or legitimate vs. pseudo-knowledge.

Recent publications (2021-2025) cluster around several cross-cutting themes: the material cultures of Enlightenment science, critical re-readings of Marcel Mauss and Michel Foucault, and the politics of knowledge production in anthropology and history. These studies illuminate how mundane objects—Buffon’s portable desks, playing cards used as scholarly devices, or filing cabinets—mediate scientific work and reshape epistemic categories.

Scientific Awards & Honors:

• Prix de l’Évolution psychiatrique 2016 (shared with Elisabetta Basso for Foucault à Münsterlingen. À l’origine de l’histoire de la folie)

Doctoral Advising & Grants:
As HDR-qualified faculty, Bert supervises PhD candidates in the interdisciplinary environment of the IHAR and the Centre interdisciplinaire d’histoire des sciences et des religions. One recently defended thesis under his co-direction is Adrien Miqueu’s Les protestants et la matière: atomisme et styles savants à Genève, XVIIe-XIXe siècles (2024).

Laboratory & Networks: He co-organizes the research group Carnet d’hypothèses, a platform for reflexive experimentation in the history and anthropology of knowledge, and collaborates closely with the Centre interdisciplinaire d’histoire des sciences et des religions.