Admission Requirements
The course is specifically designed for PhD candidates and Research MA students registered at LeidenGlobal partner institutions, but students from other institutions are also eligible to attend. All students should first consult with their advisors before applying.
New incoming students of the ResMA Asian Studies or the ResMA Middle Eastern Studies are advised to discuss their participation with the student advisor, if they are interested as they will not have been assigned a supervisor yet by September 11th.
Please register before 12:00 PM on Monday 11th of September 2023. Applicants will learn of their admission status no later than Friday September16th, 2023 and receive the programme and literature. Admission is at the discretion of the LeidenGlobal executive committee.
Description
‘Beyond Discipline and Place’ is an interdisciplinary series of lectures and seminar discussions open in the fall of each year to PhD candidates and Research MA students at Dutch Universities and LeidenGlobal partner institutions.
It offers advanced research students an opportunity to examine how scholars in the academic fields of the Social Sciences and the Humanities (including Archaeology and Law) locate their work in relation to disciplinary conventions, reflect on their socio-political position as researchers in relation to their research, and explore choices of discipline and place along their career path.
Through the semester advanced research students will learn of different approaches to discipline and place, consider the potential value of each as well as the challenges and barriers to implementation. Together participants will work to locate their emerging research projects, with attention to researchers’ positionality and ethical practice.
Recurrent topics and questions relating to the research/knowledge are as it follows:
How should we study complex processes in an ever globalizing world, understand societal challenges, solve global-reach problems? Governments, funding agencies, industry and university leaders are calling on researchers to break out of their intellectual silos in pursuit of fresh insights. Heeding the call, researchers increasingly engage in interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary, even post-disciplinary projects, integrating approaches, and developing new modes of inquiry. But can all this “cross-disciplinary pollination” deliver on the promise of greater innovation and creativity? How does knowledge exchange happen when we transcend conventional disciplinary bounds? What is intellectually, practically, and ethically at stake when we rethink our disciplinary concepts, theories, and methods in academia and beyond? Is it necessary, or even possible, for novice scholars to engage in cross-discipline research?
Course objectives
The series aims to stimulate conversations and collaborations across disciplinary and societal divides, in line with developments in scholarship worldwide. Ideally, students will participate in this course early on in their
scholarly training, but applications by students at all stages of their research careers are welcome. A complementary seminar series entitled “Methodologies in the Social Sciences and Humanities” is offered in the Spring.
Timetable
Mondays 16:15-18:00, from 18 September 2023 till 11 December 2023. The next course will be given in autumn 2024.
Mode of instruction
The course will be coordinated and moderated by Dr Noa Schonmann.
The series will bring scholars to present their disciplinary, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research projects. Guest lecturers will discuss their research project in its disciplinary context, addressing issues of theory and practice.
Speakers assign an article as preparatory reading (available through open access or the Leiden University digital library), accompanied by one or several questions for students to bear in mind while reading, and one or several propositions for structuring in-class discussion. Assignments are selected for (i) relevance to the speaker’s own research, (ii) relevance to the central questions of this course, (iii) significance, and (iv) accessibility to a student audience of widely varying background and specialization. Rather than highly specialized studies, these are big-picture texts that speak to the development of the field in question at large, even if they do so through case study material. Speakers may engage with these texts in class, and/or use them as starting points for taking the discussion further. They will lecture for 30 minutes, and then moderate a discussion among the students.
During the course, students will work towards a ‘think piece’ (2,000 words) written for their supervisors, in which they reflect upon the course: what they have learned from it; how they responded to it; the issues it addressed; any questions it brought up for them in terms of their own research, etc. The final session will include a discussion of key points from these draft papers. Once they are finalized, students discuss the papers with their supervisors. Whether or not this is considered creditable is up to the student’s home institute / faculty and their individual supervisors.
Students are expected to attend all sessions. Incidental exemptions may be requested from the course convener.
Assessment method
During the course, students will work towards a ‘think piece’ (2,000 words) written for their supervisors, in which they reflect upon the course. The final session will include a discussion of key points from these draft papers. No grade or credits will be given.
Reading list
Speakers assign an article as preparatory reading (available through open access or the Leiden University digital library).
Registration
Please register before 12:00 PM on Monday 11th of September 2023. Applicants will learn of their admission status no later than 16th of September 2023 and receive the programme and literature. Admission is at the discretion of the LeidenGlobal executive committee.
Registration Studeren à la carte en Contractonderwijs
Not applicable.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the information bar on the right.
For questions about registration, contact LeidenGlobal.
Remarks
LeidenGlobal is a collaborative effort by the following academic and cultural institutions:
· Leiden University
· African Studies Center Leiden (ASC)
· International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS)
· Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO)
· Royal Institute for Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV)
· National Museum of Antiquities (RMO)
· Museum Volkenkunde
Jointly, the expertise of the scholars associated with these institutions extends to many parts of the world, including Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, North America, and Russia and the Caucasus, through fields of enquiry and themes ranging from archeology to international relations, and from temple iconography to new media. As such, Leiden offers a truly global perspective.
LeidenGlobal aims to raise the visibility and the impact of academic and cultural scholarship and events for a wider audience, and to build partnerships with the media, government, the corporate sector, and NGOs; and to strengthen local collaboration in scholarly endeavors such as grant applications and graduate training.