400020 SE Scholarship as a Vocation: STS Perspectives (2022W)

In this doctoral seminar we will examine the scholar’s life in the university, beginning with Max Weber’s lecture on scholarship as a vocation and continuing with relevant scholarship from STS and cognate fields. We have two main aims: to be analytic, using systematic evidence and argument to support our examination, and to keep sight of the personal and practical implications of our analysis: what does our investigation mean for a person starting their scholarly career in academe today? In short, the course will help students develop a foundation of systematic knowledge and reflection about the profession which they are entering that, we hope, will serve as a point of orientation for their careers.
Our topics, in approximate order, are scholarship as a vocation (Weber and what follows), collaboration, inter- (multi-, trans-) disciplinarity, sociological ambivalence, ethics and values, research misconduct, identity and mobility, open science, peer review, proposal development, AI and machine learning, and public engagement. Students will be invited to suggest topics and expected to contribute to a lively but informed discussion. A spot in the schedule has been reserved for students to nominate a topic to be added to the course.
The seminar will be strongly interactive and student driven, and its quality and personal meaning for students will depend in large measure on their investment in the course. To that end the course will ask a student (or pair of students) to take responsibility for initiating and guiding discussion. In place of the usual term paper students will be asked instead to prepare a brief (2-3 pages) paper that criticizes and reflects upon the meaning and implications of the week’s material. We will also monitor relevant periodical publications that appears during the term for emergent or changing concerns.