300046 Research Class - Transnational Studies - Work-in-progress (S) (WiSe 2013/2014)

Requirements:

Active work on a thesis in the field of transnational studies: development, migration, citizenship (MA Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation)

Content:

This seminar focuses on sustained cross-border processes, called transnationalization, and with corresponding social practices and identifications which mark a specific kind of heterogeneity, called transnationality. In this seminar participants discuss work-in-progress dealing with transnational perspectives. At the core are issues of development politics and policies, transnational social policy, international migration and integration, transnational social spaces, democracy and citizenship. This seminar identifies questions for further research and offers some methodological venues for the study of cross-border transactions.

In particular, this seminar is meant to help graduate students and doctoral candidates to conceptualize their thesis papers, conduct research and write the final version. Among other things students learn to select relevant literatures, develop a research design and evaluate empirical data.

The core of the seminar is the presentation of work-in-progress by all participants. The papers for the workshop in December 2014 must be distributed via ekVV four weeks in advance. Failure to comply will result in exclusion of the respective text from the seminar discussion.

We will devote ca. 90 min for each paper. There will be no oral presentation by the author prior to the discussion. We will delve into the discussion of the paper right away.

The discussion of each paper will be documented in written form. Thus each participant will receive a feedback based on the seminar discussion. For each paper, one person will be designated to write a 2-3 page summary of the discussion.

The working language of this class is English. Even if papers are written in German, the discussion will be held in English. Doctoral candidates are encouraged to write their theses in English. Each paper has to be prefaced by a short summary of the overall study (PhD dissertation, MA or BA thesis) and the main questions addressed to the class.

Requirements for ECTS:

In this research class three (3) LPs can be acquired:
- Regular participation in ALL sessions and
- Presentation of a thesis proposal or a chapter from work-in-progress