(Requirement for 1st year MA Africana and SCA students)
What is research? What kinds of methods might we employ critically to interrogate emergent social and cultural questions? How do academics move from research to writing? How do we elaborate an argument? These questions will animate the course, which is designed to teach Masters-level students to the tools and techniques of sustained and self-directed research. Through in-class discussions, guest lectures, readings, and assignments, students will gain an understanding of the kinds of methods currently deployed for social and cultural analysis. The course will be designed around the East Village, in order to allow the class to apply diverse modes of inquiry to local contexts and dilemmas. The course will focus particularly on methods related to ethnography, archival research, discourse analysis, and material culture, with readings drawn from across the critical humanities and social sciences.