CFP: CHSC Dissertation Workshop

The 9th annual CHSC dissertation workshop will bring together a group of approximately 10 graduate students and 5 faculty from diverse UC Davis graduate programs in the Social Sciences and Humanities. We plan to participate in a weekend of intensive discussions concerning students' individual dissertation projects and the shared issues they generate. The 5 themes that will be considered include:

Bodies and Borders
Wars
States and Globalization
Identity Processes
Markets and Institutions
Modernities: Past, Present and Future

Given the anticipated intellectual and disciplinary diversity, the workshop will challenge participants studying substantively different issues to articulate how and why we are approaching our research as we do. It will provide the space to explore and compare different perspectives on research topics, study designs, and methods. Thematic issues will emerge from the interplay of the various projects represented in the workshop. These issues may include philosophical underpinnings of research, relevant literature in and beyond students' research fields, and strategies for maximizing the contribution of dissertations to advancing knowledge. We are also planning to consider methodological approaches across different disciplines, questions of case selection, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and validity; ethical and practical issues involved in dissertation research and its funding, matters of representation and voice, including self-representation; and the moral and political implications of research. Finally, we hope to explore questions about how dissertations take shape and change in form and focus over the course of research and writing, and the transition from Ph.D dissertation to subsequent research and publication.

We seek to involve participants utilizing various types of research materials literary, ethnographic, archival, quantitative, visual, etc. and working in a wide variety of locations and over a range of time periods. The goal is to sharpen the foci, methodologies, and analyses of individual research projects and, at the same time, to facilitate and accelerate their completion, by creating a critical yet collegial workshop community among participants.

Structure: The workshop will begin at 3pm on Friday, May 11, and conclude with lunch on Sunday May 13, in the serene venue of the Westerbeke Ranch, located in the hills outside Sonoma. Details of organization will be provided to participants once they have been selected. The costs of workshop related travel, meals, and accommodations will be fully funded by CHSC.

Application procedure: All UC Davis dissertation students in the humanities and social sciences are eligible to apply. Applicants may be at any stage of their dissertation projects, so long as they have completed a dissertation prospectus or grant proposal for it. The selection process consists of two stages:

Stage 1, letter of interest: To be considered for workshop participation, please send a one page letter of interest, describing your dissertation topic and stage of research, along with a brief C.V. The letter and C.V. should be sent via email to mlstewart@ucdavis.edu by February 23, 2007.

Stage 2, application: On the basis of reviewing letters of interest, the CHSC faculty workshop committee will ask a select number of students to submit full workshop applications, to be provided by March 23, 2007. Applications are to include three items to Dissertation Workshop Program, UC Davis Center for History, Society, and Culture, 5211 Social Science/Humanities Building, UCD:
• a 5-10 page prospectus for the dissertation or grant proposal for dissertation funding
• a writing sample of up to 10 pages no longer preferably from a draft of the dissertation (or alternatively, an earlier related piece of writing) dealing with the dissertation's central themes or debates
• a brief C.V.

Participants will be selected on the basis of their submitted materials, the potential for useful exchanges among them, and a concern to include a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, intellectual traditions, and world areas. Applicants will be informed whether or not they have been selected for the Workshop by April 3, 2006.

For further information contact:

Marisol de la Cadena
530-752-1638
mdelac@ucdavis.edu

Or

Michelle Stewart
mlstewart@ucdavis.edu