Research Lab: Tools, Methods, Design

Course goals

This course will prepare students for writing their thesis proposal based on the theories, topics, and repertoire they encountered and researched over the course of the first year. Students will learn how to turn an interest for a particular topic into a research question and how to move from that question to formulating a problem or working hypothesis. They will learn how to find sources and engage with them, and how to organize their notes and materials efficiently and productively. They will practice writing an abstract, arguing from evidence, and offering and receiving peer-review.

Content

This course trains students to develop the practical and methodological skills required to design, develop, and carry out an independent piece of scholarly research in the field of Comparative Literary Studies. We will tackle concrete questions relating to research and academic writing, including: How do you turn an intuition, an idea or a research interest into a sharp research question and working hypothesis? What is a convincing line of argumentation and how do you sustain it throughout a longer piece of writing? What is a critical and productive state of the art? What is the difference between description, analysis, and interpretation? How do you balance argumentation with evidence? How do you create a productive and dynamic dialogue between theory and analysis? Students will learn to think critically about their own theoretical and methodological choices with regard to the questions their research interests generate. In addition, students will learn how to find sources and how to engage with them and organise their notes and materials efficiently.

 

Additional information

Please note: the time slot shown here is not yet final and may still be modified until the 3rd Wednesday in September.

This course is only open to students from RMA Comparative Literary Studies.

Career orientation
The research lab prepares students to become skilled and efficient researchers. It prepares students for a PhD program, but also for alternative career paths, by focusing on the following transferable skills: conducting research, organizing and managing material, familiarity with different methods, reflecting critically on methods, close reading, discourse analysis, reception analysis, archival research, peer review, advanced language skills.