In academia today, interdisciplinarity is necessary and valuable to understand social and political phenomena. Many scholars in the social sciences and humanities engage in inspiring research that transcends the confines of their own fields by integrating the research tools traditionally used by other disciplines. The downside of this trend is that there is no “interdisciplinary how to guide,” rendering trial-and-error the only option for younger researchers. The task becomes even more chall...
In academia today, interdisciplinarity is necessary and valuable to understand social and political phenomena. Many scholars in the social sciences and humanities engage in inspiring research that transcends the confines of their own fields by integrating the research tools traditionally used by other disciplines. The downside of this trend is that there is no “interdisciplinary how to guide,” rendering trial-and-error the only option for younger researchers. The task becomes even more challenging for students whose research is not only interdisciplinary but also intends to combine theoretical/textual analysis with different forms of field work in their research. The traditionally offered “methods” courses do not necessarily serve their interests for theory/textual analysis and field research are usually considered mutually exclusive. In our quest for productive hybridity we ask the following questions in SPTSA’s Methodos Roundtable/Workshop: How do we do research when we don’t speak the language of numbers, variables, and causalities? What is a methodology? What is the deed that breeds, supports, tweaks or refutes theory? How do we combine field research and theory?
To answer these questions we've invited distuingished scholars from various disciplines to give a roundtable talk on how to combine theory with method and to hold breakout workshop sessions with students for more personal advice.
SPTSA is proud to welcome: Banu Bargu (New School), Barbara Cruikshank (UMass), David Garland (NYU), Mary Hawkesworth (Rutgers), and Melissa Wright (Penn State).
