Scholarly communication is organised on the principle of peer-review. A scholarly text needs to be positioned and discussed within the disciplinary domain, taking into account previous research, theoretical frameworks and methods. Most pieces of scholarly work go through a phase of critical inquiry by scientific peers, reviewers, supervisors, evaluators, grant institutions etc. Different kinds of scholarly research: studies, PhD theses, habilitations, grant proposals and articles for peer-reviewed journals are critically appraised in this manner. Ideally, this process will enhance the quality of scholarly work.
‚Peer-Review Colloquium‘, is based on a similar principle of critical, yet constructive feedback by colleagues and peers. The structure of the course offers space for peer-to-peer communication and provides informed response to ongoing research projects such as doctoral dissertations, grant proposals, articles in peer-reviewed journals etc. Lecturers and participants will take on both roles: that of presenter and of respondent/reviewer. The main objective of the course is to enable critical and constructive feedback in a group setting.
Main Topic 2018:
Matter, Material(s) and Materiality
The built environment is produced and constituted by manifold social and material processes and mediated representations. This course will focus on the material dimension of these processes. By material, we mean both, the physical dimension of our environment and the ‘material’ documenting it – the textual and archival components that provide the foundation of our research. Over the course of this semester, we will analyse matter/material and materiality through a close reading of a selection of texts.
The three major questions of our analysis:
- What is the role attributed to matter and material in the research of these text?
- How is matter and material represented in the publications? (What about non-verbal elements, e.g. diagrams, illustrations, maps and images?)
- What is the theoretical framing of matter/material/materiality within these texts?
Participants are encouraged to analyse the selected texts according to a scheme provided in the first meeting and present their results to the group. The major interest of this scheme will be to lay open the texts’ internal structure, to summarize its central lines of argument and to shed light on the central terms and notions of the text.
Literature reviews are a fundamental component in research, which might be necessary at any given step of the research process – to get an overview of the research on a topic at the beginning or for specific question while conducting research. We will put an exemplary analysis of one of the texts up for discussion in our first meeting.
Meetings:
16.3.
13.4.
25.5.
8.6.
22.6
(3.00 pm Library Department of Housing and Design)