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SoSe 19: Advanced Disciplinary Theory and Methods in the Study of History

Jessica Gienow-Hecht

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Writing and researching a PhD thesis will be one of the most exciting, rewarding and challenging intellectual challenges of your career and one that you will always remember. This course offers first-year PhD candidates the opportunity to continue working on their thesis and prepare themselves for the progress report, due in August at the end of the first term. While the focus during the winter term is on theory, methodology and secondary sources topped off by a sound historiographical review, the second term focuses on primary research, archives, more methodology and the composition of a draft research report. The course structure is very much determined by students’ need. We will investigate individual source material pertaining to students’ individual research topic but may also wish to discuss how to assemble data, how work in archives and how to organize individual research trips. Furthermore, we seek to develop a structure, a table of contents and a draft text for the progress report. Candidates looking for inspirational reading regarding the writing of a thesis may check out Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams, The Craft of Research, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008) as well as Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), all present in the JFKI library. The first draft of your research report is due on 1 July. close