GANT
7006

PhD ProSeminar II: Project Conceptualization

New School for Social Research: Anthropology

Liberal Arts
Graduate Course
Majors Only
PhD Proseminar II
Fall 2024
Taught By: Ann Stoler
Section: A

CRN: 17201

Credits: 3

This doctoral seminar is designed to help students develop and formulate a dissertation project, to develop the questions that they want to pose and to think about the kinds of material that will allow them to do that. The seminar is focused on ethnography but this does not mean that the seminar addresses only graduate students in anthropology. The principles and practice of working ethnographically have increasingly become prevalent in a range of fields from sociology, history, politics, and philosophy, global and environmental studies. This interdisciplinary doctoral seminar focuses on ethnography broadly conceived, on multimedia experimental work and on the epistemologies that shape how it is produced, both your own imagining of what you can know that may be vastly different from those you engage. That very question may be the subject of your inquiry. As with all dissertation work, one key issue, is to develop not only a “subject” but the question and questions you seek to pose and how those questions can help you frame how you hope to engage your subject. How might you think both about the form and content of your ethnographic efforts? How much does how we write work to convey the ways in which people live with things, with others, with their environments in such different ways? The seminar sessions alternate between reading, making, and writing exercises that develop your thoughts around these questions. The goal is to clarify your research problematic and the literature you will need to engage. Enrollment is limited to PhD students in the early stages of developing a research project. Students from any NSSR or Milano PhD program are welcome to apply. Please contact Professor Ann Laura Stoler for permission to join the seminar, as she will be leading it. Her email is: stolera@newschool.edu.

College: New School for Social Research (GF)

Department: Anthropology (ANT)

Campus: New York City (GV)

Course Format: Tutorial (J)

Modality: In-Person

Max Enrollment: 5

Add/Drop Deadline: September 9, 2024 (Monday)

Online Withdrawal Deadline: November 17, 2024 (Sunday)

Seats Available: Yes

Status: Open*

* Status information is updated every few minutes. The status of this course may have changed since the last update. Open seats may have restrictions that will prevent some students from registering. Updated: 3:44am EDT 4/26/2024