Graduate Course Available for Fall

AMS 803 Research Methods in American Studies
Program in American Studies, KU
Prof. Ben Chappell
Mondays, 4:30-7:00 pm.
Requires: graduate standing

A limited number of seats for non-AMS students are available in this course, which is a core requirement for the MA and PhD in American Studies. The course is a critical and theoretically informed consideration of qualitative methods in interdisciplinary cultural research. Taught by an anthropologist, the course emphasizes issues raised by ethnography-- that is, the epistemological, political, and ethical questions that come up when the subjects of cultural inquiry are living human beings, and the process of inquiry places the researcher in relationship with them. More generally, our concern is how to design a project such that the actual practice of research responds to the motivating questions in ways that are significant, appropriate, and feasible. Assignments are geared toward giving students practice in the professional genres of academic writing, including conference papers and proposals for research funding. The course is recommended for graduate students pursuing research in area studies, cultural studies, and other disciplinary or interdisciplinary formations across the humanities and social sciences.