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 13th.
Please register before 12:00 PM on Monday 13th of September 2021. Applicants will learn of their admission status no later than 17th of September 2021 and receive the programme and literature. Admission is at the discretion of the LeidenGlobal executive committee.
Description
This course is interdisciplinary in nature and its content will cross disciplines and sub-disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities. Each session a guest lecturer will discuss timely issues of ownership, ethics and power relations in theory and research. Each speaker will draw from a variety of fields and disciplines that are relevant to her/his research. Coherence is ensured by the overarching themes we ask each of the lecturers to address – themes that will then be discussed extensively in class by the course coordinator. Recurrent topics relating to research/knowledge ownership, ethics and power relations are as it follows:
Decolonising curricula and research
What defines today’s field of inquiry?
How does this field relate to realities, representations, and issues of place?
Onto-epistemic diversity
The situatedness of scholarship, as reflected in things like: - the history and legacy of the field and the questions it asks - the trajectory of the individual researcher - the nature of the data - issues of theory and methodology - institutional and socio-cultural contexts
Multiculturalism and multilingualism
Translation: interlingual, intercultural, intermedial, interdisciplinary, etc
Objects and agency
Scholarship and activism
Public understanding of and engagement with scholarship
‘Discipline’ and ‘place’ mean many things to many people. Disciplinarily, thematically, and regionally defined fields of inquiry are not mutually exclusive or antagonistic and stand to benefit from interaction. The course does not underwrite any single definition or inventory of disciplines or places, be this linked to particular points in time and space, scholarly method, political persuasions, or other coordinates. Rather, it offers an entry point for a debate on where we find ourselves that retains its relevance today in novel, striking ways.
Programme
Details of the Programme will follow
Course objectives
Discipline and Place’ is a lecture series offered to PhD and Research MA students at Dutch Universities and LeidenGlobal partner institutions in the Fall of each year. It gives them an opportunity to reflect on the broader field of the Social Sciences and the Humanities (SSH, in European parlance) –including Archaeology and Law – and to position their own research accordingly. 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. The scope of the series stimulates trans regional and trans disciplinary dialogue, in line with developments in scholarship worldwide.
A complementary seminar series titled “Methodologies in the Social Sciences and Humanities” is offered in the Spring.
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of Instruction
The course will be coordinated and moderated by Elena Burgos Martinez.
It will convene twice a week for 90 minutes from mid-September to mid-November, on the Leiden University Humanities campus.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 30-45 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 at info@leidenglobal.nl
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 13th of September 2021. Applicants will learn of their admission status no later than 17th of September 2021 and receive the programme and literature. Admission is at the discretion of the LeidenGlobal executive committee.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Vrieshof
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.