MA CAST BB Period 4 Researching the Interrelations Between the Sciences and the Arts 2013 2014

8/12/2019 MA CAST BB Period 4 Researching the Interrelations Between the Sciences and the Arts 2013 2014

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Faculty of Arts and Social SciencesMA CASTPeriod 4

2013/2014

Course RCA5008

Research Master CAST

RESEARCHING THEINTERRELATIONS BETWEEN THE

SCIENCES AND THE ARTS:SELF-FASHIONING


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RESEARCHING THE INTERRELATIONS BETWEEN THE SCIENCES AND THE ARTS: Period 4MA CAST

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 3

Course Theme 4Course Design 5Course Objectives 5Course Assessment 6

Tutor and Coordinator 6WEEK-BY-WEEK COURSE OUTLINE 7

Week 1 8Week 2 10

Week 3 11Week 4 12Week 5 13Week 6 14Week 7 15Week 8 16


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INTRODUCTION


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Course Theme

This course deals with the confluence of the arts and sciences in every day practices

of self-fashioning, i.e. the performance of a specific identities on (semi-)publicfora.Since the late nineteenth-century, the arts and sciences have grown apartinstitutionally. The sciences were professionalized and institutionalized within theuniversity, which solidified the rule-governed, certified nature of scientific researchand education. Meanwhile, in the wake of Romanticism, the arts were increasinglyexempted from all rules, precepts, and codified procedures, which left them toreinvent themselves with each and every new avant-garde ism that was introducedin the course of the twentieth century. The rules and protocols of sciencediscouraged scientists from seeking for guidance and inspiration in the aestheticrealm, while it became increasingly difficult for artists and authors to gain access toscientific knowledge. As scientific and aesthetic practices were driven apartinstitutionally, it became quite futile to seek for direct influences of twentieth-centuryscientists upon artists or the other way around. This does not mean, however, thatthe two are worlds apart. It is just that we cannot conceptualize their interrelations interms of causal influence patterns.Notwithstanding persistent claims to scientific and aesthetic autonomy, both sciencesand arts have proved to be powerful forces that shape and are shaped by thesurrounding socio-cultural context. Rather than directly influencing each other, theymix and mingle while impacting on contested cultural, social, and political sites.Individuals may at times feel the need to write back to the pervasive normative

impact of the psy-sciences and the biomedical sciences on personal identities,looking for creative escapes through narrative form. Conversely, scientific modelsmay also serve as sources of inspiration for criticizing cultural clichs about thecrucial social differences that structure our identities (sex, sexuality, age, ethnicity,race, nationality ). At times, scientists model themselves after artists (e.g. thescientist as Romantic genius). On other occasions, artists stylizes themselves asresearchers, as in contemporary practices of so-called artistic research. This makesfor a more complex picture of interaction than the linear influence model. Thiscourse offers concepts, methods, and perspectives for scholarly inquiry into theinterplay between the sciences and the arts in everyday practices of self-fashioning.Hence, life writing in all shapes and sizes is a central object of inquiry here.

Methodologically, we will focus on discourse analysis, including the tools of narrativeand rhetorical analysis.


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Course Design

Group meetings come in three types:

a. Lecturesthat discuss key concepts, theories, and methods for coming to terms

with the aesthetic and scientific co-construction of identity.

b. Seminars, for the joint discussion of reading assignments with a

methodological focus.

c. Research meetings, for the presentation of and (peer) feedback on your own

ongoing research projects.

As this course is about researchingthe interrelations between the sciences and the arts,your own individual research projects will begin as soon as the course starts,following the set-up presented below in the week-by-week course outline (in freestyle letter type). You are free to team up with a fellow-student if you want to, butnot with more than one, for group work will be practiced in period E. You will havetwo weeks at the end of the course to devote fully to writing a 6000- word researchpaper on a case study of your own choice. Reading assignments will decrease towardsthe end of the course as your work on the research paper increases. When you startproducing draft chapters in weeks 6 and 7, peer feedback will assume a moreorganized form, i.e. every student will receive two feedbacks from fellow students.

You will be teamed up by the tutor.

Course Objectives

This course aims to:

- Enable you to conceptualizethe interrelations between the sciences and the arts

beyond the standard views of autonomy and causal influence in a concrete

way, using various instances of self-fashioning as case studies.

- equip you with conceptual and methodological toolsfor analyzing the

aesthetic and scientific co-construction of identity- alert you to the ways in which the construction of individual identity is

constrained by social, cultural, and political factors, i.e. to identitypolitics.

- Train you in (some tools for) discourse analysis

- Practice the art ofgiving and receiving feedbackon scholarly work-in-progress


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Course Assessment

In addition to regular evaluation criteria (spelling and punctuation, grammar,

vocabulary, style, soundness of argumentation, sense of audience, clarity of problemstatement, argumentative logic, coherence, lucidity, compliance with APA, accuracy),your 6000-word paper will be evaluated according to your success in bringing theconcepts, theories, and methods discussed in class to bear upon the case study athand.

Position within the CAST curriculum

The focus of the first CAST course was on producing a discussion paper that reviewsthe use of a particular concept in the (inter)disciplinary fields relevant to CAST. Thesecond course dealt with everything students need to know to produce their firstCAST research paper, not just studying other peoples research, but also doing

research themselves, on a topic of their own choosing. This course takes the lastapproach one step further, through more focused inquiry into a somewhat moredelimited research field. Within the overall course theme of self-fashioning on thebasis of scientific and aesthetic repertoires, you are still free to pursue your own linesof interest, but the idea is that students feedback on each others work will be

facilitated by a shared focus. In addition, the purpose of this course is to foregroundthe A in the CAST curriculum.

Tutor and Coordinator

Dr. E. (Lies) Wesseling, Department of Literature and Art/Centre for Gender andDiversity, Grote Gracht 80-82 (Soiron Building), room 2003, tel.:043-3883309/82669/83317;[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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WEEK 1

A.

Lecture:

- Course introduction

Start thinking right away about your research topic. Choose a scientist, traveler/explorer,artist/author, politician or other (semi-)public figure who catches your interest, and meets thefollowing demands: There is sufficient autobiographical material available (this can entail memoirs, autobiographies,

diaries, letters, blogs, vlogs, personal homepages )

The subject at hand is l ikely to have been susceptible to input from both scientific and artistic

discourses

You may choose a public personality or celebrity, but you need not do so. You could also choose an

ordinary person who is likely to have been policed by science andwho relies on narrative forms to

shape his or her experience, e.g. a parent (cf. mommy blogs), a teacher, a doctor, an

entrepreneur, etc.

Alternatively, you may also elicit oral life stories from the subject of your own choosing through

indepth interviewing or through online ethnography and then analyze the oral life stories emerging

from this endeavor, but this implies, of course, that you have access to this person.

Write 1-2 pages on the subject of your own choice, answering the following questions:

Who have you chosen?

Which (auto-)biographical materials are available?

How do you expect this person to draw on both scientific and aesthetic repertoires in the

construction of a public persona?

Why is this topic of interest, to whom, with respect to which issues?

Upload your pages on eleum, 24 hours before the research meeting in week 2 at the latest.

B. Lecture: On Self-fashioning- Seminar: Self-fashioning, Theory

Erving Goffman, 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York:

Doubleday.

While studying these and all the other assigned readings, always ask yourself thefollowing questions and report back on your findings in class accordingly:- What are the key theoretical concepts here and what do they mean, what are

their uses?

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Which methods does the author apply? How does s/he defend his/herchoice of methods, if at all?


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- If the author does not explicate anything, could you infer the method(s) from

the publication yourself?

- Does the author identify crucial allies and/or opponents amongst fellow

scholars? If so, who are they and why these? Does the author defend his or

her affinities and disidentifications convincingly, or are we dealing with mere

adulation cq. bashing?


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WEEK 2

A. - Seminar: Self-Fashioning, Learning by example: Steven Shapin, Nobel Savage, London Review of Books, 1999

Elisabeth Wesseling, Judith Rich Harris: The Miss Marple of Developmental

Psychology, Science in Context17(3): 293-314.

- Research Meeting:

Discussion of research topics: Give a 5-minute presentation on the topic ofyour choosing, on the basis of your written pages, while explicating thepoints you would like to receive feedback on. During this meeting and allother research meetings, try and put clarifying, probing questions to eachother so as to sharpen and specify each others problem statements, as aminimum form of feedback that everybody should be able to provide toeveryone. Anything you manage beyond that (come up with constructivesolutions, suggest interesting publications on the topic at hand, etc.) is, ofcourse, wonderful.

B. - Seminar: Self-Fashioning, Learning by Example: Carl Edward Thompson, The Suffering Traveller and the Romantic Imagination.

Oxford: Clarendon, 2007.


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WEEK 3

A.

- Lecture: Life Writing: Theory and Practice

- Seminar: Life Writing, Theory:

Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, Reading Autobiography: A Guide to Interpreting

Life Narratives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Chapters 1,2,3

Between A and B, start working on the formulation of your problem statement:a. use the topical questions (who, what, where, when, why?) to narrow down the topic of your choice

b. explicate as fully as possible for yourself why you are drawn to/intrigued by the topic of your

choice

c. settle on the rhetorical purpose of your research paper: do you want to formulate and defend a

claim, answer a research question, nuance or correct the communis opinio ?

d. select a research question or claim that refers a real problem, i.e. it should not be a question that

you already have an answer to or that has already been settled by the discussants, nor should it

be a question that you can answer with a simple yes or no and not much else.

e. formulate your problem statement as precisely and concretely as you can possibly can: who or what

does your ps refer to, within which context, duringwhich period, within which situation, ?

f. why is this question pertinent/relevant: on which problems will it shed light, and how, and why are

these problems urgent?

g. What are the knots that you still need to cut, the aspects you are still unsure of, the things that

need further inquiry?

Write 1-2 pages to present your problem statement and upload it 24 hours before the upcoming research

meeting.

B - Seminar: Life Writing, Learning by Example:

Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, Reading Autobiography, Chapter 9.

Sidonie Smith, Americas Exhibit A: Hillary Rodham Clintons Living

Historyand the Genres of Authenticity,American Literary History24/3: 523542.

- Research Meeting:

5-minute presentation of your problem statement in class, discussion of each

otherscontributions.


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WEEK 4

A. - Lecture: Discourse Analysis- Seminar: Discourse analysis: theory

James Paul Gee, 2010. Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. New

York: Routledge, Chapters 1,2,3,4 (available online).

Between A and B, formulate subquestions and an outline and compile a provisional bibliography:a. Divide your problem statement into 3-4 subquestions that zoom in on specific aspects of the topic at

hand

b.

You need to formulate these subquestions in such a way that they can be dealt with in 3-4successive chapters

c. Produce a first draft of the table of contents of your paper, providing brief summaries of the

envisaged content of every chapter.

d. Primary sources: which sources will you analyze to tackle the problem at hand? What type of

sources are these, which aspects of your topic will they illuminate, which aspects will they

obscure?

e. Secondary sources: explore what has already been published about your topic/problem statement

through google scholar, google books, J-Stor, BNTL, MLA, AHR, the cumulative bibliography of

the journal ISIS, Picarta

f. check the availability of these materials through Picarta and J-stor

g. describe any difficulties you may run into when collecting your primary and secondary sources

Produce 3-4 pages on these assignments and upload them 24 hours before the research meeting

B. - Seminar: Learning by Example, Gee, Discourse Analysis, Chapters 5 and 11

- Research Meeting: Outline and bibliography, 5-minute presentations.


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WEEK 5

A.

Lecture: Narrative Analysis

- Seminar:

Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, Reading Autobiography, Appendix A

Joanna Thornborrow, 2013. Narrative Analysis. In: James Paul Gee and

Michael Handford, eds. Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis. London:

Routledge, 51-66.

Between A and B, identify your conceptual framework and method:a. Which concepts will be particularly useful to your topic and why?

b. Which method/s will be particularly appropriate in the light of your problem statement and

primary material and how will you apply them?

c. Motivate your choices in a 1-2pages and upload it on eleum 24 hours before the next research

meeting.

B. Seminar: Narrative Analysis, Learning by Example:

Gillian Beer,Darwins Plots:

Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot andNineteenth-Century Fiction. London:Ark Paperbacks.

- Research Meeting:

Give a 5-minute presentation on crucial concepts and methods in yourongoing research project.


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WEEK 6

A.

- Lecture: Rhetorical Analysis

- Seminar:

* Craig Smith, 2004. Ethos Dwells Pervasively. In: Michael J. Hyde, ed., The Ethosof Rhetoric. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1-19.* The Normative Structure of Science included in Robert K. Merton,TheSociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical InvestigationsUniversity of Chicago Press(1979), 267-278.

Between A and B, produce a draft of the first two chapters, upload them 24 hours beforeresearch meeting

- Seminar: Learning by Example:

Linda Walsh, Scientists as Prophets: A Rhetorical Genealogy. Oxford: Oxford UP,

2013, chapters 1,2,3,4,

Research meeting, organized peer review of first two draft chapters.


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WEEK 7

Before B, produce a draft version of the last two chapters, uploading them 24 hours before the researchmeeting.

B. Research meeting: organized peer review of last two chapters


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WEEK 8

Submit final version, drinks

MA CAST BB Period 4 Researching the Interrelations Between the Sciences and the Arts 2013 2014

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