Social Science Research Council

SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL
DISSERTATION PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT FELLOWSHIP

RETHINKING EUROPE: RELIGION, ETHNICITY, NATION
FALL 2007 WORKSHOP AGENDA

Research Director: John Bowen
Research Director: Rogers Brubaker

Crowne Plaza St. Louis Downtown, Saint Louis, MO
Thursday, September 6 – Sunday, September 9

This is the second of two annual DPDF workshops designed to help graduate student fellows prepare cogent and fundable dissertation proposals in their chosen field.  The two goals of the second workshop are 1) to help fellows synthesize their summer research; and 2) to draft proposals for dissertation funding. The fall workshop focuses on the mechanics and the philosophy of proposal writing. The workshop also aims to challenge fellows to reflect on their summer research in ways that link meaningfully to their research field. In this, the goals of the fall workshop are closely related to the project of mapping a research field that was started during the Spring workshop in Denver, Co.

Fellows will come out of the second workshop with supportive networks, consisting of both mentors and cohorts of new scholars carrying out research in their fields, as well as intellectually mature dissertation proposals. We will focus on how each student’s proposal has developed since the spring workshop, what the student needs to work on now, and, collectively, what we have learned about the relationships between individual disciplines and our shared new “field”.

Workshop Readings and Resources:
Research Field resources have been placed on the secure DPDF web portal. 

Workshop Assignments
- You all should upload a complete draft dissertation proposal by September 1. Please feel free to refer to these during our discussions.
- You will be discussing colleagues’ proposals in the same format we used this spring.
- Fellows are asked to work together as a team to present their research fields during the last plenary session on Sunday.   

RETHINKING EUROPE: WORKSHOP SCHEDULE 

Session 1: The Dissertation Proposal: Strategies and Funding Sources
(Thursday, 9 AM – 12:00 PM)

- Welcome and Introductions (DPDF Program Director Peter Sahlins)
- Dissertation Funder Presentations
Dr. Leslie C. Aiello, President, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
Mr. Tony Claudino, Director, Fulbright IIE
Mr. William Hahn, Program Director, Division of Graduate Education National Science Foundation (NSF)
Dr. Nicole Stahlmann, Associate Director, SSRC International Dissertation Research Fellowships (IDRF)

Sessions 2-6: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday

These sessions will focus on student proposals, which have been (roughly) grouped in thematic / methodological clusters. We will proceed as we did in the spring, and, again, focus on the logical links between broader orienting questions (“how does migration change ideas and practices that signal cultural identity?”), focused field research questions (“how do people “back home” assess the identities of returnees?”), a sense of how the research will progress (which you have already set in motion), your specific research instruments (interviews, events, archives), and how you will evaluate outcomes, change your research if need be, and then have something to say about your initial questions. That’s all!!

We wish you to reassess your own proposals as we go, perhaps recasting bits each night. We also ask you to reflect on our shared set of concerns and your own discipline, reflections which may help you in thinking about multidisciplinary inquiry.

The same discussants will discuss each proposal as before. Take 6-7 minutes initially, as before, and address (1) what was the most important change in the proposal and why did you choose that change? (2) what do you find unclear? (3) do you have suggestions for the writer? (4) is there a general lesson to be drawn from this research: a method, a way of framing the issue, or an argument that you think could benefit others, and might help us characterize what we are doing together (our “field”).

Session 2:  (Thursday, 2:00 PM – 5 PM)  

a. Dumes and Street discuss Nowinski
b. Ozegan and Nowinski discuss Oliphant
c. Astor and Oliphant discuss Street

9 PM: Visual Culture movie screening, “Meet Me in St. Louis” (1944), directed by Vincente Minnelli, starring Judy Garland.

Session 3: (Friday, 9 AM – 12:00 PM)

a. Nowinski and Kozak-Islik discuss Astor
b. Street and Astor discuss Trumble
c. Balthrop-Flyn and Tromble discuss Kozak-Islik

Session 4: (Friday, 2:00 PM – 5 PM)

a. O’Toole and Ozgen discuss Rottman
b. Tromble and Balthrop-Flynn discuss Ozgen
c. Fleming and Rottman discuss Balthrop-Flynn

Session 5:  (Saturday, 9 AM – 12:00 PM)

a. Oliphant and O’Toole discuss Dumes
b. Kozak-Islik and Dumes discuss Fleming
c. Rottman and Fleming discuss O’Toole

Session 6: (Saturday, 2:00 PM – 5 PM)

a. Brubaker and Bowen present general remarks about the proposals.
b. We all jointly prepare for the next day’s plenary session.

Session 7:  Plenary Session – Student Mini-Conference: Mapping Research Fields
(Sunday, 9 AM – 12:00 PM)

The last session of the second DPDF workshop is devoted to student presentations of their research field.  Students in each field are responsible for organizing their group presentations in the mode of a mini-conference.   Each field will be given a total of 25 minutes, and projects should be presented in an order and grouping that gives the field coherence.  Students are invited to use images and other media as appropriate, but should structure their very short presentations around the following:  1) a research question; 2) a working hypothesis; 3) the research site(s) and sources; 4) the methodological approach; and 5) contributions to the field.   These interventions, in short, represent the “cocktail party” version of the answer to the question, “what are you working on?”  The exercise is intended to give fellows the opportunity to develop a summary version of their research project while locating their work in a collectively-defined research field.