University of Technology, Sydney

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55002 Social Political Historical Honours Seminar

UTS: Communication: Cultural Studies
Credit points: 8 cp
Result Type: Grade and marks

Handbook description

This seminar provides an opportunity for students to examine and reflect on key issues in the area of social, political and historical studies by investigating the underlying assumptions of knowledge production in relevant academic disciplines. The subject provides a critical engagement with claims to truth made within anthropology, historiography, political philosophy and feminism by exploring key epistemological, theoretical and methodological debates held within, and sometimes between, each knowledge area. As well as providing a critique of processes of knowledge production, the subject also offers a range of critical theoretical tools as potential starting points for student's own research work. It aims to assist students develop a theoretically reflexive and analytical approach to their own research knowledge practices, as well as to those of others.

Subject objectives/outcomes

On completion of this subject, students are expected to be able to:

  1. engage with specific ongoing disciplinary debates about the problems and politics of knowledge production
  2. reflect critically on the theoretical and methodological tools used in knowledge production
  3. develop a knowledge of, and appreciation for, a range of critical theoretical tools
  4. cultivate an analytic and self-critical focus on their intellectual development as social/political/historical researchers.

Contribution to graduate profile

The knowledge acquired and the skills developed in the course of successfully completing this subject will contribute in a marked degree to having students achieve the faculty's desired graduate profile. This subject will help develop more articulate, perspicacious and sharp-minded individuals, improve the quality of graduates' analytic thinking, expand their theorising capacities, hone their capability for engaging in detailed and sustained discussion, assist graduates to develop as well-informed and inquiring active citizens, equip graduates with useful individual and team research skills, enhance the social consciousness of graduates, and stimulate graduates towards a greater commitment to social justice.

Teaching and learning strategies

This seminar will be taught in a one-hour lecture/two-hour tutorial format. It will also include two final sessions of student seminars which will be peer assessed. It is expected that students will take control of, and lead, tutorial discussion, and prepare thoroughly for each topic discussion. Assessment has been designed to encourage you to hone skills in developing clearly structured arguments in both oral and written forms.

Content

In this subject students will be focusing on how to ask questions about the way in which knowledge is constructed. This is a philosophical journey of engaging with the status of knowledge in the areas of ethnography, historiography, political philosophy and feminism, and also a practical journey focused on how as researchers we might produce different accounts of the social world depending on which theoretical and methodological frameworks we draw on. Having developed your skills in interrogating narratives about the world, the subject's emphasis shifts from the crisis in knowledge production to the range of key theoretical approaches which may provide some useful starting points for framing your own research practice. These approaches include critical theory, post colonialism, post structuralism and feminism. The aim of assessment in the subject is to encourage you to link a critical awareness of the politics of knowledge with specific disciplinary debates and your own individual research topic areas.

Assessment

Assessment item 1: Essay

Objective(s): a, d
Weighting: 40%
Task: Respond to the following essay topic:
What is the so-called 'crisis' in knowledge production about? What challenges does this 'crisis' pose for contemporary research practice, including your own?

Assessment criteria:
  • Structured development of overall argument.
  • Coherent, arguments throughout which draw on the readings and ideas covered in the first half of the subject.
  • Evidence of wider, relevant reading which informs the development of all arguments.
  • Well-evidenced evaluation of relevant epistemological debates in relation to research practice.
  • Capacity to conform to a formal essay genre.

Assessment item 2: Close textual analysis

Objective(s): a, b, c, d
Weighting: 20 % Presentation;
40% Written analysis
Task: Close textual analysis: For this task, you are expected to produce a close critical analysis of one SHORT piece of research (a key journal article, a chapter from an edited collection or a research report) which strongly relates to your area of research interest.
This analysis should focus on exposing at least some of the following:
  • the place of the selected piece in its wider disciplinary context.
  • the key techniques through which the author creates an authoritative writing voice.
  • the key techniques through which the author constructs the text narrative, argument or story (or, what is the structure of the text?).
  • the key arguments of the text.
  • the key epistemological/theoretical frameworks the author uses, and any assumptions, problems, oversights.
  • the key methodological frameworks the author uses, and any assumptions or problems, oversights.
  • the underpinning purpose of the text and its implied audience.
There will be other issues to comment on, these are just some starting points. As a general rule, remember to think about what is absent from the text, as well as on what is present!

Assessment criteria: Presentation
  • Clear situation of the text in its field.
  • Clear identification of an overall argument about the text.
  • Well-evidenced arguments about the epistemological, theoretical, and methodological assumptions made in the text.
  • Evidence of informed critique rather than description.
  • Capacity to field questions.
Written analysis
  • Clear situation of the text in its field, with reference to broader, relevant literature.
  • Clear identification of an overall argument about the text.
  • Well evidenced arguments about the epistemological, theoretical, and methodological assumptions made in the text.
  • Evidence of informed critique, evaluation and argument rather than description.
  • Capacity to conform to a formal essay genre.

Minimum requirements

Students are expected to read the subject outline to ensure they are familiar with the subject requirements. Since class discussion and participation in activities form an integral part of this subject, you are expected to attend, arrive punctually and actively participate in classes. If you experience difficulties meeting this requirement, please contact your lecturer. Students who have a reason for extended absence (e.g. illness) may be required to complete additional work to ensure they achieve the subject objectives.

Attendance is particularly important in this subject because it is based on a collaborative approach which involves essential workshopping and interchange of ideas. Students who attend fewer than ten classes are advised that their final work will not be assessed and that they are likely to fail the subject.

Indicative references

Because of the exploratory nature of this seminar, no specific texts are being set initially. Seminal extracts from certain documents will be distributed in class during the first few sessions, and collectively the seminar group will be expected to build up a substantial set of apposite reference material.

The following are some suggested initial useful references:

Gibson Burrell, Gareth Morgan, Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis: elements of the sociology of corporate life, London,: Heinemann Educational, 1979
Bryan S. Turner (ed), The Blackwell companion to social theory, Malden, Blackwell, 2000.
Anthony Elliott (ed), The Blackwell reader in contemporary social theory, Malden, Blackwell, 1999.
Ben Agger, Critical social theories: an introduction, Boulder, Westview Press, 1998.
Luigi Tomasi (ed), New horizons in sociological theory and research : the frontiers of sociology at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Aldershot : Ashgate, 2001.
Clive Seale (ed), Researching society and culture, London, Sage, 1998.
Dickens D, Fontana A, (eds),Postmodernism and social inquiry,New York : Guilford Press, 1994.