PhB (Arts) @ ANU

[Skyhawk]

Hello! I am a Year 12 student currently considering my study options for 2014.

In particular, I am interested in the Bachelor of Philosophy offered by the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences.

Can anyone tell me what the first Advanced Studies course (Thinking Research) involves?

(Since everyone has decided to ignore my question on the Bored of Studies website, I decided to try my luck here!)

I have browsed the information provided on the ANU's website, but as it's rather vague, I would really appreciate if someone more familiar than myself with the course could tell me more about it.

What does it specifically involve?

[rife168]

It's no surprise you haven't got a reply haha, the PhB Arts cohort is very small.
Maybe shoot EvangelionZeta a pm (Members->Search for members->EvangelionZeta).

Or perhaps try emailing Elisabeth Findlay ([email protected]), the PhB arts coordinator. I'm sure she'd be happy to answer any questions you have.

[Skyhawk]

Hi Rife168,

I must thank you immensely for replying to my post!

I shall endeavour to contact Evangelion Zeta in the near future.

The PhB Arts Coordinator is also a great suggestion!

Thanks again and all the best,

Skyhawk

[Lolly]

Hi Rife168,

I must thank you immensely for replying to my post!

I shall endeavour to contact Evangelion Zeta in the near future.

The PhB Arts Coordinator is also a great suggestion!

Thanks again and all the best,

Skyhawk

(  On the open day I met the coordinator at a cafe on campus, she was really lovely and she'll definitely answer your questions )

[Eriny]

I think they would have changed the AS course from when I first did it (in 2008!) but it was basically getting you to think about academic writing and I guess, if you like, some of the 'meta-theory' of academia, which in first year seems kind of out there but is incredibly useful once honours rolls around. It's not that easy to explain, but basically the academic disciplines require you to think in particular ways. The AS course gets you to pay attention to the kinds of assumptions that underlie your chosen discipline(s), and the way certain types of knowledge might be regarded as more authoritative than other types. It's actually really interesting.

I also remember being taught the mechanics of academic writing and research - also very useful.

[et4xy]

Hey Skyhawk!

I'm replying a little late, but to make up for that tardiness, I've uploaded the 2012 course outline for ARTS1101 (Thinking Research).
(Edit: I totally can't figure out how to upload documents on a forum post so I've copied&pasted the whole darn thing in a spoiler break! Sorry, it's a massive chunk of text!)

I'm not sure how helpful it'll be, since there's more jargon than normal words in this document, but it'll give you a taste of the week-to-week course content & readings we covered in the course. Of course, not all the readings were required (and even those that were rarely ever got done by us students! ). We mainly covered the generic (but important!) theories in class and then applied them to our respective majors (Pol Sci, History, Socy, Anthro etc etc) for our papers and presentations.

Please do ask if you have any more questions!

Spoiler

TIMETABLE AND READING

Session 1 (24th Feb):  David Marsh (School of Sociology, RSSS) Introduction: What we need from you and what you can expect from us.

Session 2:  (2nd March), David Marsh – Ontology and Epistemology: What we can know, how we can know it and why that is important.
Required Reading: *Paul Furlong and David Marsh (2010, ‘A Skin Not a Pullover: Ontology and Epistemology in Political Science’ in D. Marsh and G. Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Science (Basingstoke, Palgrave, 3rd ed.), 184-211

Session 3 (9th March), David Marsh - Ontology, Epistemology, Theory and Methodology
Required Reading:
*Paul Furlong and David Marsh (2010), ‘A Skin Not a Sweater: Ontology and Epistemology in Political Science’ in D. Marsh and G. Stoker, Theory and Methods in Political Science, (Basingstoke, Palgrave, 3rd ed.), 184-211
*M. Read and D. Marsh (2002), ‘Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Methods’ in D. Marsh and G. Stoker, Theory and Methods in Political Science, 2nd Edition.

Further Reading on Ontology, Epistemology and Method
a) Ontology and Epistemology   
Blaikie, N. (1993), Approaches to Social Enquiry. Cambridge: Polity.
Blythe, M. ‘Institutions and Ideas’ in D. Marsh and G. Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Science. London: Macmillan.
Bohman, J. (1991), New Philosophy of Social Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991.
Chalmers, A. (1990), Science and Its Fabrication. Buckingham: Open University Press 
Couvalis, G. (1997) The Philosophy of Science: Science and Objectivity. London: Sage.
Fay, B. (1996) Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science: A Multicultural Approach. Oxford: Blackwell.
Fuller, S. (1997) Science. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Giddens, A. (1979) Central Problems in Social Theory. London: Macmillan.
Greco, J. and Sosa, E. (ed.) (1998) The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology. Oxford: Blackwell — esp. introductory chapter.
Hamilton, P. (1996) ‘The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science’, in S. Hall et al. (eds.) Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies. Oxford: Blackwell.
Harding, S. (ed.) (1987) Feminism and Methodology. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
*Hay, C. (2002), Political Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave, Chaps. 1 and 2. Hollis, M. (1994) The Philosophy of Social Science: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hollis, M. and Smith, S. (1990), Explaining and Understanding in International Relations, Clarendon Press.
Ingold, T. (ed.) (1996), ‘Social Anthropology is a Generalising Science or it is Nothing’ (contributions by Hart, Cohen, Good, Okely), in Key Debates in Anthropology. London: Routledge. 
*Kapyla, J. and Mikkola, H. (2010), ‘A Critical Look at Critical Realism: Some Observations on the Problem of Metatheory’, World Political Science Review, 6, 1, 248-267.
King, G. et al. (1994), Designing Social Inquiry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kirk, R. (1999), Relativism and Reality: A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routeldge. 
Kuhn, T.S. (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakatos, I. and Musgrave, A (eds.) (1970), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Marsh, D. and Furlong, P. (2002), ‘A Skin Not a Sweater: Ontology an Epistemology in Political Science’, in D. Marsh and G. Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Science. London: Macmillan.
May, T. and Williams, M. (eds.) (1998) Knowing the Social World. Buckingham: Open University Press — esp. chapters by Harré, Outhwaite and Williams.
Ryan, A. (ed.). (1975) The Philosophy of Social Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*Savigny, H. and Marsden, L. (2011), Doing Political Science and International Relations:  Theories in Action, Basingstoke: Palgrave, Introduction and Chapter 1.
Sayer, A. (1992) Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach. London: Routledge.
Sayer, A.  (2000) Realism and Social Science. London: Sage.
Sayer, A. and Storper, M. (1997) ‘Ethics Unbound: For a Normative Turn in Social Theory’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 15 (1), 1-17.
Smith, M. J. (1998) Social Science in Question. London: Sage.
Smith, S. et al (eds.) (1996) International Theory: Positivism and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stedman-Jones, S. (1998) ‘Relativism/Absolutism’ and ‘Fact/Value’, in C. Jenks (ed.) Core Sociological Dichotomies. London: Sage.

b) Methodology
*Devine, F. and Heath, S. (1999), Sociological Research Methods in Context, Basingstoke, Macmillan, Introduction and Conclusion.
Brannen, J. (1992), Mixing Method, Aldershot: Avebury.
Bryman, A. (1988), Quantity and Quality in Social Research, London: Routledge.
Devine, F. (2002), ‘Qualitative Methods’, in D. Marsh and G Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2nd edition.
*Grix, J. (2004), The Foundations of Research, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
John, P. (2002), Quantitative Methods’, in D. Marsh and G Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2nd edition.
John, P. (2010), Quantitative Methods’, in D. Marsh and G Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 3rd  edition.
Marsh, C. (1988), Exploring Data, Cambridge; Polity.
Mason, J. (1994), ‘Linking Qualitative and Quantitative Data Analysis’, in A. Bryman and R. Burgess (eds.), London: Routledge.
Mason, J. (1996), Qualitative Researching, London: Sage.
Silverman, D. (1997), Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice, London: Sage.
Vromen, A. (2010), Debating Methods: Rediscovering Qualitative Approaches, in D. Marsh and G Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 3rd  edition. 

Session 4: (16th March), The Meta-Theoretical Issues  -  Structure and Agency and the Material and Ideational
Required Reading: *Marsh, D. (2010), Meta-Theoretical Issues, in D. Marsh and G Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 3rd edition.

Further Reading on Meta-Theoretical Issues:
a)   Structure and Agency
Archer, M. (1995), Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M. (2000), Being Human: The Problem of Agency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Archer, M.  (1998,) ‘Social Theory and the Analysis of Society’, in T. May and M. Williams (eds.) Knowing the Social World. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Bieler, A. and Morton, A. D. (2001), ‘The Gordian Knot of Agency-Structure in International Relations: A Neo-Gramscian Perspective’, European Journal of International Relations, 7 (1), 3-35.
Bourdieu, P. (1984), Distinction, London, Routledge.
Bourdieu, P. (1977), Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
Craib, I. (1992), Structuration Theory. London: Routledge.
J. Dessler, D. (1989), ‘What’s At Stake in the Agent/Structure Debate?’, International Organisation, 43 (3), 441-74.
Fay, B. (1996), ‘Does Our Culture or Society Make Us What We Are?’, in Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science: A Multicultural Approach. Oxford: Blackwell.
Fuller, S. (1998), ‘From Content to Context: A Social Epistemology of the Structure-Agency Craze’, in A. Sica, What is Social Theory? Oxford: Blackwell, esp. pps. 92-3, 98-115.
Giddens, A. (1979), Central Problems of Social Theory. London: Macmillan — chapter 2.
Giddens, A. (1984), The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity — especially chapter 1.
*Hall, M. (2011), Political Traditions and UK Politics, Basingstoke: Palgrave, Chapters 1 and 2.
*Hay, C. (1995), ‘Structure and Agency’, in D. Marsh and G. Stoker (eds.) Theory and Methods in Political Science 1st edition London: Macmillan.
Hay, C. (2002), ‘Beyond Structure Versus Agency: Context Versus Conduct in C. Hay, Political Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Hay, C. and Wincott, D. (1998), ‘Structure, Agency and Historical Institutionalism’, Political Studies, 46 (5), 951-7.
Hollis, M. and Smith, S. (1991), ‘Beware of Gurus: Structure and Agency in International Relations’, Review of International Studies, 17, 393-410.
Jessop, B. (1999), ‘Interpretative Sociology and the Dialectic of Structure and Agency’, Theory, Culture and Society, 13 (1), 119-28.
Layder, D. (1994), Understanding Social Theory. London: Sage — especially chapters 6-8.
*Marsh, D. (2010), ‘ Stability and Change: The Last Dualism?’, Critical Policy Studies, 4, 1, 2010, 86-101.
*McAnulla, S. (2002), ‘Structure Versus Agency’, in D. Marsh and G. Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Science, 2nd Edition, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Stones, R. (2001), ‘Refusing the Structure/Agency Debate’, European Journal of Social Theory, 4, 2, 177-197.
Sztompka, P. (1993), The Sociology of Social Change. Oxford: Blackwell — chapters 13 and 15.
Walsh, D. F. (1998), ‘Structure/Agency’, in C. Jenks (ed.) Core Sociological Dichotomies. London: Sage.
Wendt, A. (1987), ‘The Agent/Structure Problem in International Relations’, International Organisation, 41 (3), 335-70.
Wendt, A. (1987) (1999), Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wight, C. (1999), ‘They Shoot Horses Dead Don’t They? Locating Agency in the Agency-Structure Problematique’, European Journal of International Relations, 5 (1), 109-42.

b)   Material and the Ideational
Althusser, L. (1968/71) ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’, in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. London: New Left Books — also reprinted in Essays on Ideology. London: Verso.
Barrett, M. (1992) The Politics of Truth: From Marx to Foucault. Cambridge: Polity.
Bevir, M. and Rhodes, R.A.W. (2002), ‘Interpretive Theory’ in D. Marsh and G. Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Science. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2nd ed.
Blyth, M. (1997) ‘“Any More Bright Ideas?” The Ideational Turn of Comparative Political Economy’, Comparative Politics, 29 (1), 229-50.
Blythe, M. (2002), ‘Institutions and Ideas’, in D. Marsh and G. Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Science. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Eagleton, T. (1991) Ideology: An Introduction. London: Verso.
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity.
Fowler, R. (1991) Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge.
Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Hall. P. (ed.) (1989) The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism Across Nations. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hall, S. (1996) ‘The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power’, in S. Hall et al. (eds.) Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hay, C. (1996) ‘Narrating Crisis: The Discursive Construction of the Winter of Discontent’, Sociology, 30 (2), 253-77.
*Hay, C. (2002), ‘The Discursive and the Ideational in Contemporary Political Analysis: Beyond Materialism and Idealism’, in C. Hay, Political Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
*Hay, C. (2002), ‘The Challenge of Post-Modernism’, in C. Hay, Political Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
*Hay, C. (2007), ‘Constructivist Institutionalism’, in R.A.W. Rhodes, S. Binder and B. Rockman (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
Hodge, R. and Kress, G. (1979) Language as Ideology. London: Routledge.
*Howarth, D. (1995) ‘Discourse Theory’, in D. Marsh and G. Stoker (eds.) Theory and Methods of Political Science. London: Macmillan.
Howarth, D. (2000), Discourse (Buckingham: Open University Press).
Hunt, A. and Purvis, T. (1993) ‘Discourse, Ideology, Discourse, Ideology, Discourse, Ideology’, British Journal of Sociology, 44 (3), 473-99.
*Marsh, D. (2008), ‘Keeping Ideas in their Place: In Praise of Thin Constructivism’, Australian Journal of Political Science.
Thompson, J. B. (1990) Ideology and Modern Culture. Cambridge: Polity.

Session 5 (23rd  March): Paul Fawcett (Politics and International Relations, University of Sydney) -   Governance

Session 6 (30th March): Ned Curthoys (School of Cultural Enquiry) - Text and Context in English Studies
Required Reading
*Vernon, J. (1994), “Who’s Afraid of the Linguistic Turn”? The Politics of Social history and Its Discontents’, Social History, 19, 1, 81-97.
*W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley, which is in Wimsatt and Beardsley (1954), The Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry, University of Kentucky Press, 1954, pp. 3-18,

Further Reading
David Damrosch (2006), ‘World Literature in a Postcanonical, Hypercanonical Age’, in Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2006), Introduction.
Franco Moretti’s Manifesto (2000), ‘Conjectures on World Literature’, New Left Review  1, 2000.
Edward Said, ‘Camus and the French Imperial Experience’ Culture and Imperialism (Chatto and Windus, London, 1993), pp.204-224.
Edward Said’s manifesto (1991), ‘The World, the Text, and the Critic’ in The World, the Text, and the Critic (New York: Vintage). 
Leo Spitzer (1944), ‘Geistesgeschichte vs. History of Ideas as Applied to Hitlerism’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 5, no. 2, April 1944.

Anthologies
H. Aram (ed) (1994), The New Historicism Reader (Veeser: Routledge).
Robyn R. Warhol, Diane Price Herndl (1997), Feminisms: an anthology of literary theory and criticism (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press).

Session 7 (27th April): David Marsh -   Stability and Change and the Politics of Late Modernity
Required Reading:
*Marsh, D. ‘Late Modernity and the Changing Nature of Politics: Two Cheers for Henrik Bang’, Critical Public Policy, 5, 1, 2011, 74-89.
*Marsh, D. ‘Late Modernity and the Changing Nature of Politics: Two Cheers for Henrik Bang’, Critical Public Policy, 5, 1, 2011, 74-89.

a)   Stability and Change
Blythe, M. (2002), 'Institutions and Ideas', in D. Marsh and G. Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Science. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2nd ed.
Dobbin, F.R (1993), 'The Social Construction of the Great Depression: Industrial Policy During the 1930s in the United States, Britain and France' Theory and Society Vol22 pp 1-56.
Fine, B (2002), 'Economics Imperialism and the New Development Economics as Kuhnian Paradigm Shift?' World Development Vol.30, No. 12, pp. 2057-2070.
Hall, P. (1993), 'Policy Paradigms, Social Leaming and the State: The Case of Economic Policy-Making in Britain', Comparative Politics, 25 (3), 175-96.
Hay, C. (1996), 'Narrating Crisis: The Discursive Construction of the Winter of Discontent' , Sociology, 30 (2), 253- 77.
*Hay, C. (2002), Political Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Kuhn, T. (1970), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago IL: Chicago University Press.
Jensen, Jane (1989), 'Paradigms and Political Discourse: Protective Legislation in France and the United States Before 1914', Canadian Journal ofPolitical Science XXII:2 june/juin.
Lakatos, Imre and Musgrave, A (eds), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge Cambridge: University Press.

b) The Politics of Late Modernity
*Bang, H. (2010), ‘Between everyday makers and expert citizens’, in Fenwick, J. and J.McMillan (eds.), Public Management in the Postmodern Era : Challenges and Prospects. (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing), 163-192.
Bang, H. (2010), ‘Between democracy and good governance: A national-global quest’ in M. Böss (ed.), The Nation-State in Transformation: The Governance, Growth and Cohesion of Small States under Globalisation (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press), 340-362.
*Bang, H. (2009), ‘Yes we can': identity politics and project politics for a late-modern world’. Urban Research & Practice, 2:2, 117-137.
Bang, Henrik Paul (2009), ‘Political community: The blind spot of modern democratic decision-making’ British Politics,  4, 100–116
*Bang, H. and A. Esmark (2009), ‘Good governance in control society- Reconfiguring the political  from politics to policy’  Administrative Theory and Praxis, 31:1, 7-37
Bang, H.  (2007), ‘Critical Theory in a Swing’ in  Bevir, M. and F. Trentmann (eds.), Governance, Consumers and Citizens ( Basingstoke: Palgrave), 191-231.
Bang, H. (2011), ‘The Politics of Threats: Late-Modern Politics in the Shadow of Neoliberalism’ Critical Policy Studies, Vol. 5, No. 4, December 2011, 434–448.
Bauman, Z. (2000), Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Beck, U., Giddens. A. and Lash, S. (1994), Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order (Oxford: Blackwell).
Castells, M and Cardoso. G. (2006), The Network Society (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press).
Giddens, A. (1991), The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford. CA: Stanford University Press).
Lash, S. (1990), The Sociology of Postmodernism (London: Routledge).

Session 8/9/10/11/12:   Student Presentations

ASSESSMENT
The assessment, in particular the second assessment, is flexible and will be discussed in class.

First Assessment (25% of your mark for the module): This will be an essay of 1,500 words where you critically examine one of the issues/concepts discussed in weeks 2,3,4, 7 or 8. You are advised to complete this essay as soon as possible, to get feedback before writing the second essay, but June 1st is the final due date. You are advised to talk to me, or correspond by e-mail, before beginning to write.

Second Assignment (75%): This will be an extended essay of 4,000 words, on a topic which you will set, but has to be agreed with me, and reflect the issues covered in the course. You will give a presentation of your work in sessions 8/12. Essays must be submitted by June 1st.