Postgraduate commons
In December 2011, a group of PhD students from the Faculties of Law and Humanities met at HUMA to discuss possible cross-disciplinary ventures. Although they came from widely divergent fields, the students identified three common academic wishes; to get a better grounding in social theory, to get hands-on research experience and to have a better grasp of the epistemological and methodological foundations of social science research. With support from the dean, HUMA was able to offer three series of lectures to PhD students. The first of these, “Truth and Method”, started in October 2011 in response to the needs of our own PhD students. “Truth and Method” was open to all students in the Faculty and consisted of weekly seminars on methodological and epistemological issues in research. Deborah Posel designed and lectured this very successful series. Please click here to read more about “Truth and Method” and to download the programme.
Our second offering to PhD students consists of a series of theoretical seminars on prominent thinkers in the Humanities. The first lecture in this series, on the 23rd of May 2012 was by Prof Rob Nixon on postcolonial theory and environmentalism. The series will continue through the third and fourth semesters.
A third stream of activities dealt with questions of methodology and the practicalities that arise from fieldwork research. Please click here for a programme.
Beyond these formal activities, HUMA has also launched a Vula site for our postgraduate programme on which we post news, programmes and initiatives and on which students with similar interests can connect.