The Seminar is offered to doctoral students and advanced master students in urban studies (“Stadtforschung”) and related disciplines, with the overall aim of providing an opportunity for the students to discuss their thesis projects as additional support in the development of their research theories and methods. The course is organized through informal group discussions of the students’ research projects. In particular, the seminar aims to help the students critically review, clarify, and receive constructive feedback on their own research projects, their aims, objectives, concepts and methods; learn about a range of theories and methods in urban research; develop the capacity for and engage in critical assessment of similar research projects; develop a friendly and supportive group of researchers who can benefit from knowing about each other’s work during the seminars and even afterwards.
Contemporary urban theory has developed apace over the last decade to consider the complex urban processes and issues that have risen as a result of globalisation, diversification of the economy, socio-demographic shifts, neo liberal political agendas, migration and growing concerns around the environment amongst many other salient issues. Urban studies now concerns itself also with new theoretical agendas which focus on questions of theorizing everyday life and discussing emerging epistemologies of collective acts of appropriation of (public) urban space. The seminar will have a particular emphasis on urban culture and public space, but contributions on other subjects are eligible. Master and doctoral students at any stage of their work from architecture, spatial planning, and more widely from social sciences, humanities and the arts, who are researching into urban issues are welcome to attend.
The seminars will be interactive, delivered through several concentrated blocks in the winter semester. After a general introduction and depending on the number of attending students, each participant will be allocated a 30-minutes slot, in which his/her work is discussed in the group by the seminar tutors and other students. The students will prepare a text of 4-6 pages about their research and upload it on the course website at least two weeks in advance, so that the tutors and fellow students can read it in preparation for the session. In their allocated slot, the students first present their work (approx. 10 minutes), describing the subject of their research, their aims and objectives, their theoretical framework, their research methodology, and the results of their work so far. Students will be expected also to relate their research to contemporary urban theory through selected readings from the designated course text. The tutors and fellow students will then engage in a discussion about these points with the students, helping to clarify and develop the concepts and methods of the research project. The nature of the seminars is developmental, designed to help the students with constructive feedback. Furthermore, the students will benefit from the range of issues that are covered and discussed. The development of a friendly group atmosphere is an essential part of the course, and so it is important that all participants attend all the sessions and engage in supportive discussion of one another’s work.
The seminar will be held in blocked format on the following dates:
3rd October 2018, 9am - 3:30pm
28th November 2018, 9am - 4:30pm Colloqium Day with Sabine Knierbein, Sophie Watson and Simon Güntner
5th December 2018, 11am - 5:30pm
23rd January 2019, 9am - 3:30pm
24th January 2019, 11am, 3:30pm
Bibliography
Bryman, A. (2015) Social Research Methods. Oxford University Press. Section The Research Process, Point 1 (The Nature and Process of Social Research) Point 3 (Research Design) and Point 4 (Planning a research project and formulating research questions), Pp. 2-15, 39-89.
Bridge, G and Watson, S (2011) The New Blackwell Companion to the City. Wiley. (Part Introductions)
Deinet, U. (Ed.) (2009) Methodenbuch Sozialraum. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden
Deming, M. E.; Swaffield, S. R. (2011) Landscape Architectural Research: Inquiry, Strategy, Design. John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey
Groat, L. and Wang, D. (2002) Architectural Research Methods. John Wiley & Sons, New York
Johnson et. al. (2004) The Practice of Cultural Studies. Sage. Section Groundings (Pp. 26-43,on methodological combination) and Section Make Space! Spatial dimensions in cultural research Pp. 104-118
Peat, J et al (2013) Scientific Writing. Easy when you know how. BMJ Books
Saukko, P (2003) Combining Methodologies in Cultural Studies. An Introduction to Classical and New Methodological Approaches. Sage. Pp.1-36
Silverman, D. (2010) Doing Qualitative Research. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks
Yin, R. K. (2012) Applications of Case Study Research. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks
