A First-year Research Experience in the Humanities and Social Sciences
The exploration of ideas and perspectives are fundamental to finding new ways to understand
鈥 and support 鈥 the human experience. Undertaking research in the humanities and social
sciences as a first-year student provides a skillset that students can utilize throughout
their college career and carry into professional endeavors.
The Source Project is a sequence of two, four-credit courses called research streams
that take place in the fall and spring semesters of a student's first year at 91社区
University. Students have the opportunity to discover sources and interpret their
significance. They ask questions and seek answers, guided by experienced faculty who
engage in these practices as their profession. Students produce original projects,
express their findings, and learn how to communicate and disseminate the relevance
of their work.
To see the projects that Source Project students have created, visit the !
The Source Project is an excellent opportunity to connect with other first-year peers
who share similar interests. This experience provides a dynamic and engaging small
class environment that encourages the building of meaningful connections with both
fellow students and professors. We aim to match the rigor and engagement of a small
liberal arts college experience with the resources of a large research university.
Throughout their year in the Source Project, students not only gain impactful knowledge,
they become the sources of knowledge themselves.
"My experience was incredible and I often tell people about my experiences. Even
now鈥 I feel like I have an amazing and constantly-growing network of intelligent and
like-minded people鈥 I truly believe that this program helped me find my passion and
now, I can't imagine myself pursuing anything else career-wise."
Check it out!: A Special Issue of the on the Source Project stream "Disinformation and Naivet茅"
Program Highlights
Develop Crucial Academic Skills
The Source Project enables students to gain academic skills that will be the foundation
of their undergraduate education. By moving through the research process, students
read critically, improve their writing through revision, practice speaking about their
ideas both formally and informally, and engage in civil discourse, which guides them
towards higher-order cognitive skills.
Find Academic and Professional Success
The Source Project Research Program prepares students to excel throughout the rest
of their college career and guides them to exceptional opportunities.
Earn Credit toward Degree Requirements
Each research stream is four credits and carries general education attributes. Some
of these courses are cross-listed across several departments, with the potential for
credit to be applicable to majors and/or minors. By participating in the Source Project,
students stay on track for degree completion.
Matthew Cole
PHIL 180D/ENVI 181A and PHIL 280D/ENVI 280J
Matthew Cole
For decades now, we have understood that climate change is caused by human carbon
emissions and that it poses a threat to the lives, livelihoods, and basic human rights
of every person on earth, with the most severe and rapidly escalating consequences
for the inhabitants of the world鈥檚 poorest nations. Experts agree that a total elimination
of carbon emissions by 2050 is necessary to prevent devastating and irreparable damage
to the planet and the human communities that depend on it. The pathway to a secure
and livable future is narrowing, and realizing it poses considerable challenges: for
scientific and technological research, economic and industrial policy, democratic
politics and international cooperation.
It also raises numerous problems of justice. The ongoing effects of climate change
exacerbate existing problems of poverty and inequality and compound legacies of colonial
exploitation as well as long-standing disparities of race, gender, and class. Even
as it multiplies real injustices, climate change raises novel challenges to our ideas
about justice and to related ideas about responsibility, rights, and government. It
forces us to grapple with obligations that extend around the globe, forward in time,
and across a multitude of human and non-human beings 鈥 obligations that neither our
conventional wisdom nor our extant institutions are well-equipped to fulfill.
In this course, we explore the fraught politics of the climate crisis with an emphasis
on issues of justice. We examine the political and ideological forces that have entrenched
climate injustice, campaigns of resistance from vulnerable frontline communities,
and possibilities for a just transition advanced by activists and policymakers around
the world. Our course materials weave together the past, present, and future of life
on earth, highlighting the connections between climate justice and the regeneration
of democratic institutions, the repair of historical injustices, the rebuilding of
international solidarity, and the reimagination of global governance. Though our course
will be grounded in political theory and related social science disciplines, we also
converse with scientists, journalists, policymakers, activists, and artists who have
engaged the public to imagine the stakes of the crisis and the possible alternatives.
The fall semester introduces students to a range of key concepts, theories, and research
questions reflecting a range of disciplinary perspectives. Students engage closely
with both foundational and cutting-edge work in the social sciences and humanities,
discussing and responding to works addressing the social psychology of climate change
denial, policy designs for a just transition, the historical connections between colonialism
and the climate crisis, the philosophical case for climate reparations, and more.
In the spring semester, students develop and pursue a unique research agenda extending
from their work. After learning the fundamentals of database research, they take an
important first step from reader to researcher by assembling an annotated bibliography
and critical literature review on the topic of their choice. From there, they have
the opportunity to try out a variety of qualitative and interpretive research methods,
and to learn key scholarly maneuvers such as testing a theory, constructing a case
study, and intervening in a debate. In addition to generating an original piece of
scholarship, students get to explore methods for sharing research with broad audiences
in engaging multimedia formats: curating a digital exhibit, creating a podcast or
explainer video, or exploring other creative applications of their research.
The sequence will likely fulfill G - Global Interdependencies, I - Information Literacy,
T - Critical Thinking, N - Social Science general education attributes in the fall
semester and C - Composition, O - Oral Communication, T - Critical Thinking, I - Information
Literacy, and N - Social Science in the spring semester.
Matthew Cole is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences.
He received his PhD in Political Science from Duke University and his BA in Political
Science from Carleton College. Before joining 91社区, he taught at Harvard University,
Emerson College, and Duke University, where his classes covered topics in political
science, history, ethics, interdisciplinary studies, and expository writing. His research
and writing in political theory address the question: how do visions of the future
shape the terrain of political thought and action? This question informs his forthcoming
book, Fear the Future: Dystopia and Political Imagination in the Twentieth Century,
as well as his work on topics such as George Orwell鈥檚 Nineteen Eighty-Four, climate
fiction, technocracy, 鈥渟mart democracy,鈥 and the Green New Deal.
PHIL 180A/ENG 180N/ECON 181A and PHIL 280A/ENG 280N/ECON 181B
Will Glovinsky
In the past decade, the idea that governments should give people regular, unconditional
cash payments has become an unexpectedly mainstream policy proposal. From Switzerland
to Stockton to Kenya, pilot programs and campaigns for universal basic income have
made headlines at a time of mounting uncertainty about the future of work in an age
of automation and artificial intelligence. What is less well known is that the idea
of basic income has been robustly debated for 250 years. In this research stream,
students will approach the concept of 鈥渋ncome for all鈥 from philosophical, economic,
literary, historical, and public policy perspectives. Our premise will be that we
cannot rigorously evaluate the potential effects of this compelling yet controversial
idea without understanding where it comes from, how it has been argued for, and why
it has repeatedly captured imaginations over centuries.
In the fall, students will explore primary sources related to the origins and development
of basic income. We will begin by immersing ourselves in the circle of late-eighteenth-century
English ultra radicals led by Thomas Spence, who first proposed an economic system
in which individuals will rent land from parish governments rather than private landlords,
with the rental income then distributed equally to all residents, male and female,
as a regular cash dividend. Students will examine Spence鈥檚 philosophical milieu as
well as the strikingly literary quality of his writings, which include a sequel to
Robinson Crusoe where the islanders implement a basic income and ballads sung in taverns
to spread his views among the London working class. Since these radical ideas were
inspired by colonial accounts of Indigenous resource sharing, students will then turn
to Lahontan鈥檚 1703 Dialogue with a Savage (adapted from conversations with the Wyandot
diplomat Kandiaronk) to trace the transatlantic intellectual exchanges that contributed
to Enlightenment egalitarianism. Later units will focus on documents relating to the
Jamaican abolitionist Robert Wedderburn, Henry George鈥檚 鈥渟ingle tax鈥 movement, Martin
Luther King, Jr.鈥檚 writings on guaranteed income, Juliet Rhys-Williams and Milton
Friedman鈥檚 鈥渘egative income tax鈥, and the Canadian 鈥淢income'' experiment run during
the 1970s. Over the semester, students will gain skills in using close textual analysis
to ask questions about historical documents while also locating individual works within
broader intellectual genealogies. Our guiding questions will examine how the divergent
philosophical premises鈥攔anging from socialism to neoliberalism鈥攗nderlying basic income
proposals have shaped their structures, justifications, and popular receptions. Is
basic income a political entitlement or something owed to people as a natural right?
How would it be funded, and who would be eligible? What would be its effects on labor,
family, and the environment?
In the spring, students will select a subset of disciplinary methods and formulate
a research project that explores one chapter in the history of basic income. A series
of workshops will introduce students to both archival resources and digital databases,
and they will present their works-in-progress throughout the semester. As part of
their final projects, students will publish from their findings by curating an entry
in a multimedia digital timeline providing accessible histories and analyses of basic
income鈥檚 sources.
The sequence will likely fulfill H - Humanities, I - Information Literacy, T - Critical
Thinking, and W - Harpur College Writing general education requirements in the fall
semester and O - Oral Communication and W - Harpur College Writing in the spring.
Will Glovinsky is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Humanities. Before arriving at
91社区, he was a lecturer in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University,
where he received his Ph.D. A specialist in 19th-century British literature, he is
revising his first book on the regulation of feeling in realist novels and imperial
culture. His next project explores how the idea of universal basic income鈥攐r giving
cash regularly to everyone鈥攅merged in 18th- and 19th-century tavern ballads, dialogues,
essays, and novels. In between, his essays and courses have explored topics such as
narrators who regret their treatment of villains, the role of liberation in the novel,
and the history of close reading.
Writers, theorists, filmmakers, and planners have long speculated about the shape
of things to come and asked how future developments will affect us. These predictions
have sometimes been uncannily accurate: space travel, climate change, and even credit
cards appeared first in the pages of fiction. Other unrealized aspirations and concerns
nonetheless continue to guide political movements. This course surveys this fascinating
history of expectation, dread, and yearning for possible futures, centered mainly
on British and US cultural production. Our main focus will be on speculative fiction,
literary utopias and dystopias, science fiction novels, and film, but we will also
consider political treatises and manifestos, upstate New York鈥檚 intentional communities,
modernist architecture and urban planning, and ambitions for a universal language.
Throughout, we will ask what speculation about previous eras of turmoil and change
can tell us about contemporary advances and challenges, from AI to the climate crisis.
Works by Thomas More, Mary Shelley, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, William Morris,
H. G. Wells, Fritz Lang, Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand, W.E.B. Du Bois, Le Corbusier, Octavia
E. Butler, and Philip K. Dick.
The sequence will likely fulfill H - Humanities, I - Information Literacy, T - Critical Thinking, and C - Composition general education requirements in the fall semester and H - Humanities and W - Harpur
College Writing in the spring semester.
Will Glovinsky is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Humanities. Before arriving at
91社区, he was a lecturer in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University,
where he received his Ph.D. A specialist in 19th-century British literature, he is
revising his first book on the regulation of feeling in realist novels and imperial
culture. His next project explores how the idea of universal basic income鈥攐r giving
cash regularly to everyone鈥攅merged in 18th- and 19th-century tavern ballads, dialogues,
essays, and novels. In between, his essays and courses have explored topics such as
narrators who regret their treatment of villains, the role of liberation in the novel,
and the history of close reading.
Law as an academic field is often thought of as the study of legal doctrine and precedent,
guided by legal theory and the application of logical reasoning. While that is one
approach to the study of law, a multidisciplinary approach recognizes that law cannot
be fully understood in isolation from its larger societal context. It draws on the
methods and insights from a diverse array of academic disciplines, including anthropology,
economics, history, literature, political science, psychology, and sociology. For
example, anthropological frameworks can be used to parse the relationship between
law and culture. Economic concepts can be used to evaluate which legal rules are most
efficient. Historical analysis can be used to reveal the evolution of law and legal
norms over time. The tools of literary analysis can be used to understand the meaning
of legal texts. Political science theories can be used to explain how the law affects
the political and policymaking processes. Psychological models of decision making
can be used to inform our understanding of the decision making of legal actors. Sociological
perspectives can be used to show how social structures shape (and are shaped by) legal
norms.
The fall semester will introduce students to the theoretical frameworks and methodological
toolkits these disciplines leverage to analyze and understand the law. We will engage
with representative texts from each of the selected disciplines guided by the following
sets of questions: How is law conceptualized in each discipline? What are the distinctive
characteristics of each discipline鈥檚 conception of law? What are the kinds of questions
about law that are posed in each discipline? To what extent do the questions posed
in each discipline differ from or overlap with those posed in the other disciplines?
What are the methodologies used to address the questions posed in each discipline?
How can methodological tools from different disciplines be used to study the same
legal phenomena?
Over the course of the fall semester students will develop the skills necessary to
identify literature relevant to their interests from different disciplines, critically
analyze that literature on the basis of relevant disciplinary standards, and understand
the epistemological foundations on which disciplinary knowledge rests. These skills
will be developed with a portfolio of both oral and written work that allows students
to practice the various research methods, both individually and in teams.
The spring semester will afford students the opportunity to formulate a research question
related to their substantive interests in the law. They will then select a set of
disciplinary methods (drawing from two or more disciplines) to explore the answer
to their research question. For example, a student who is interested in free speech
might apply literary analysis techniques to U.S. Supreme Court decisions interpreting
the Free Speech Clause and then apply a political science model of judicial decision
making to the votes of the justices in those cases. As another example, a student
interested in tort reform might engage in a historical analysis of changes in tort
law over time and then rely on tools from economics to evaluate how various tort law
schemes compare on different economic dimensions. Though students will each pursue
their own individual research project, they will also work with their classmates (and
me) to workshop ideas, engage in project planning, conduct peer review of work in
progress, and prepare for presentations of their work in a poster session.
The sequence will likely fulfill T - Critical Thinking, I - Information Literacy,
N - Social Science, and W - Harpur College Writing general education attributes in
the fall semester and N - Social Science, O - Oral Communication, and W - Harpur College
Writing in the spring semester.
Wendy Martinek is Professor of Political Science. She earned a B.A. in political science
and philosophy from Lawrence University, an M.A. in political science from the University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a Ph.D. in political science from Michigan State University.
A former program officer for the Law and Social Sciences Program of the National Science
Foundation, she is particularly interested in multidisciplinary approaches to the
study of law. Her current research projects include an investigation of off-the-bench
appearances by U.S. Supreme Court justices to understand what motivates the justices
to engage in that behavior and what the effects of that behavior are on the legitimacy
of the Court. She is also engaged in one stream of research on the institutional design
of courts (with a focus on the Irish judicial system) and another stream of research
on interest group participation in state courts.
Wendy Wall
Mapping American Prejudice HIST 180A/HIST 280A Wendy Wall
Racial and religious prejudice are expressed through both private actions and public
policies, and the targets of prejudice change across space and time. In the late 19th
and early 20th centuries, Jim Crow segregation spread across the South; the federal
government imposed a sweeping immigration ban targeting Chinese; and prominent intellectuals
in many parts of the country embraced a pseudo-scientific hierarchy of races that
placed "Nordics" above "Mediterraneans," and both above people of African and Asian
descent. In the 1920s, a revived Ku Klux Klan spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific
Coast, denouncing Catholics and Jews, as much as people of color. As housing tracts
multiplied over the next few decades, many homebuilders used "restrictive covenants"
to prevent the sale of homes to non-whites, "aliens," and occasionally groups like
Italians and Jews. Many European immigrants eventually made their way into the white
middle-class, and a burgeoning civil rights movement discredited the more virulent
forms of racism. At the same time, however, federal "redlining" policies, urban renewal
projects, and other public and private policies further entrenched structural racism.
How do the parameters of prejudice change over time? How do both private actions and
public policy embed discrimination in the landscape around us? And how does structural
racism continue to shape lives, even as overt expressions of intolerance fade?
This course sequence explores such questions by focusing on Broome County, New York,
the home of 91社区, the birthplace of IBM, and an area long known as
the Valley of Opportunity. In the antebellum period, 91社区 and surrounding areas
were a major hub on the Underground Railroad. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
Southern and Eastern European immigrants flocked to the area's cigar and shoe factories,
and local corporations pioneered an approach known as "welfare capitalism." During
the Cold War, the area's concentration of electronics firms and defense manufacturers
drew high-tech workers. Yet such oft-retold stories of freedom and opportunity obscure
a darker and more troubled past that is too easily forgotten. At the turn of the 21st
century, Broome County was more than 90% white, in part a reflection of this history.
The last two decades have seen an influx of immigrants and refugees from across the
globe, and Americans of all races have come to the area for a more affordable life.
Still, the historic politics of prejudice remain inscribed in various ways on the
urban landscape.
How might public-facing history begin to redress both individual prejudice and structural
racism by sparking civic dialogue? In the fall, students will explore these issues
through a combination of reading, historical research, and community engagement. We
will peruse newspapers and pamphlets produced by the KKK in the early 1920s, when
91社区 was the Klan's New York State headquarters. We will work with newly digitized
deeds, locating and mapping racial covenants in Broome County. Finally, we will examine
federal "redlining" maps and photographs and documents charting the path of urban
renewal. Students will also learn digital and other techniques for disseminating their
findings to a broader public. In the spring, students will conduct an individual research
project of their design and disseminate their findings in a campus-wide poster session
and through other appropriate outlets.
The sequence will likely fulfill Community Engaged Learning (CEL), Information Literacy
(I), Social Sciences (N), Critical Thinking and Reasoning (T), and Harpur College
Writing (W) general education requirements in the fall and Information Literacy (I),
Social Sciences (N), Critical Thinking and Reasoning (T), and Harpur College Writing
(W) in the spring.
Wendy Wall is a historian of U.S. political culture and director of the Institute
for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. Her prize-winning book Inventing the "American
Way": The Politics of Consensus from the New Deal to the Civil Rights Movement and
numerous essays explore the intertwined issues of race, ethnicity, religion, citizenship
and politics in the 20th century. A former journalist whose work has been cited in
publications ranging from the New York Times to The American Prospect, she is committed
to fostering conversation between those within and beyond university walls. She hopes
that a deeper public understanding of history will inform and shape future policy
debates.
This course sequence will seek to understand the intersections between music traditions
or practices, the communities which support and sustain them, and how music resonates
with the values, aspirations, beliefs, and aesthetics of its intended audience. This
type of inquiry is the focus of the discipline of ethnomusicology, a field of study
that combines music and cultural anthropology with other areas of the humanities including
history, gender and LGBTQ studies, as well as area studies like Africana, Latin American
and Caribbean, and Asian. Ethnomusicological research seeks to situate a music form
within its particular historical and cultural context, whether Chinese migrants in
New York City, punk rock bands in 91社区, Puerto Rican independence celebrations
in Rochester, or funeral drum societies in West Africa.
In the first semester, students will gain an understanding of academic research methods,
project design, conducting fieldwork, and how to apply for grants and other forms
of research funding. We will review a range of ethnomusicological studies in order
to recognize how the various theoretical approaches and methodologies of previous
scholarship impacts the direction of their published work. Students will select a
music community, tradition, or group that they wish to work with, and will make connections
with artists, participants, and knowledgeable insiders. In the second semester, students
will focus on writing, editing, and presenting their research, with the aim of producing
a polished essay that demonstrates their knowledge, writing skills, and academic potential.
They will work closely with the instructor to edit and revise their work, as well
as how to structure an effective oral presentation that encapsulates the essence of
their research and findings.
The sequence will likely fulfill general education attributes in the fall semester
and in the spring semester.
When an upset victory in the 2016 Election brought Donald Trump to the White House,
many observers sounded the alarm that America was lurching toward authoritarianism.
Four turbulent years later, Trump refused to concede defeat in the 2020 Election and
his supporters laid siege to the US Capitol in hopes of overturning the results, a
moment of crisis for American democracy unlike anything since the Civil War. But Americans
were hardly facing this crisis alone: in the last decade, many of the world鈥檚 democracies
have seen demagogues and would-be dictators ascend to power. It鈥檚 not just that Russia鈥檚
Vladimir Putin and China鈥檚 Xi Jinping wield nearly unchallenged power in their respective
nations, or that they increasingly exert that power on the world stage. In nations
with long histories of democracy, emergent leaders like Hungary鈥檚 Viktor Orban, Brazil鈥檚
Jair Bolsonaro, India鈥檚 Narendra Modi, Italy鈥檚 Georgia Meloni, and Argentina鈥檚 Javier
Milei have brought authoritarian politics crashing into the mainstream. Like Trump,
many of these leaders have stoked resentment toward minorities, especially immigrants,
while undermining or ignoring checks on power, threatening their opposition, mainstreaming
conspiracy theories, and establishing cults of personality.
In this course, we seek to understand the movements and leaders behind the authoritarian
turn, and we鈥檒l do so by drawing on perspectives from political science and political
philosophy, psychology and sociology, history and journalism, art and literature.
How do today鈥檚 authoritarians rise to power? What tactics do they use to solidify
control and suppress opposition? What leads ordinary people to support authoritarian
movements? What strategies can be used to resist authoritarianism and defend democracy?
What are the implications of authoritarianism for global issues such as immigration
and the climate crisis? Can the history of dictatorships and totalitarian regimes
provide us with any insight into the workings of authoritarianism today? Our wide-ranging
course materials will range from the classics of the twentieth century to the cutting
edge of contemporary research, as we reckon with the rise of authoritarianism in America
and the world.
The fall semester introduces students to a range of key concepts, theories, and research
questions reflecting a range of disciplinary perspectives. Students engage closely
with both foundational and cutting-edge work in the social sciences and humanities,
discussing and responding to works addressing the historical parallels between twentieth
century totalitarianism and modern authoritarianism, the social psychology of authoritarian
movements, the political science and strategy of civil resistance, and the policy
implications of authoritarianism for human rights, among other topics.
In the spring semester, students develop and pursue a unique research agenda extending
from their work. After learning the fundamentals of database research, they take an
important first step from reader to researcher by assembling an annotated bibliography
and critical literature review on the topic of their choice. From there, they have
the opportunity to try out a variety of qualitative and interpretive research methods,
and to learn key scholarly maneuvers such as testing a theory, constructing a case
study, and intervening in a debate. In addition to generating an original piece of
scholarship, students get to explore methods for sharing research with broad audiences
in engaging multimedia formats: curating a digital exhibit, creating a podcast or
explainer video, or exploring other creative applications of their research.
The sequence will likely fulfill I - Information Literacy, T - Critical Thinking,
N - Social Science general education attributes in the fall semester and C - Composition,
O - Oral Communication, T - Critical Thinking, I - Information Literacy, and N - Social
Science in the spring semester.
Matthew Cole is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences.
He received his PhD in Political Science from Duke University and his BA in Political
Science from Carleton College. Before joining 91社区, he taught at Harvard University,
Emerson College, and Duke University, where his classes covered topics in political
science, history, ethics, interdisciplinary studies, and expository writing. His research
and writing in political theory address the question: how do visions of the future
shape the terrain of political thought and action? This question informs his forthcoming
book, Fear the Future: Dystopia and Political Imagination in the Twentieth Century,
as well as his work on topics such as George Orwell鈥檚 Nineteen Eighty-Four, climate
fiction, technocracy, 鈥渟mart democracy,鈥 and the Green New Deal.
Many of America鈥檚 great writers lived in, wrote about, or were inspired by, New York.
This interdisciplinary class explores selected work by writers and artists living
in or writing about the city, the state, the geography, the history, and the diverse
peoples that live here. We will learn about the sights and soundtracks, the history,
the art, and the urban geography that influenced writers as we explore how their work
reflects, represents, and emerges out of this literary metropolis. At the same time,
we will learn about literary genres, modes, and methods, reading formally innovative
work such as Jay McInerny鈥檚 Bright Lights, Big City, told entirely by a second-person
narrator. New York is more than just The City. Toni Morrison, for example, lived all
over the state and taught at SUNY-Albany. New York literature includes new genres
like Spoken Word as well as ancient media and literature, like wampum and the Haudenosaunee
(Iroquois) Great Law of Peace. The class involves field trips in addition to familiar
methods of literary study. We will take advantage of the Three Sister鈥檚 Garden Planting
Ceremony and Haudenosaunee Festival in the fall for a place-based and community-engaged
learning module. We will also visit the 91社区 Radio Station and the 91社区
Rare Books Archive to learn how to work with archival sources.
The fall semester will focus on literary texts starting with Irving Washington鈥檚 The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow. In the past, this text has been a great way to get students
engaged and talking about literature. It is also a great way for the Professor to
begin to introduce research questions (for example: who was there before the Dutch?).
As the semester progresses, we will read the literature together, discuss the texts,
and consider potential research projects. Each student will explore potential research
projects that interest them. As we discuss the texts, I point out research questions
raised by the text and begin to talk to students about how we can design research
to answer our questions around the texts on the syllabus. As the first semester progresses,
students will read literature that raises questions students can research with or
without transportation. While library research is important, I also encourage students
to visit relevant sites if possible (such as Irving鈥檚 house in Sleepy Hollow) and
archives (on campus, but also locations like The Schoemburg).
The spring semester will give students an opportunity to pursue their own research
questions under the guidance of the Professor. Throughout the semester, students will
report their activities, progress, and follow-up questions to the Professor. They
will also do short presentations on their research and workshop paper drafts in class.
The course emphasizes writing, but is also open to the use of other media.
The sequence will likely fulfill general education attributes in the fall semester
and in the spring semester.
Talking Through History: Oral History Research Methods
HIST Dan Royles
This course will introduce students to the theory and practice of life history interviewing,
otherwise known as oral history. Students will read and discuss topics such as the
history of oral history as a method, theories about the relationship between narrative
and the self, and ethics of oral history interviewing and archiving, while also learning
about practical concerns such as operating recording equipment, managing interview
files, and transcribing interviews for archiving and publication. Students will then
conduct their own interviews with staff and volunteers from the Southern Tier AIDS
Program, to help document the regional response to the HIV epidemic in the 91社区
area since the 1980s. Finally, students will work individually and in small groups
to present their interview(s) in the form of their choosing, including as research
papers, poster presentations, podcasts, and digital projects. The sequence will likely
fulfill general education attributes in the fall semester and in the spring semester.
Robert A. HolahanPeople, Politics and the Environment PLSC 180A and PLSC 180B Robert A. Holahan
Societies emerge and develop to take advantage of the natural and engineered environments
that define their landscapes. This can be a local process but is also inescapably
tied to global dynamics in which social, ecological, economic, and environmental interact
to create new understandings of what it means to be a person living in a place at
a time. We will develop an approach to studying the place you are as a new college
student鈥91社区鈥攁s an example of the broader processes at work in local social-ecological
systems. You will practice a variety of research methods from the social sciences
and environmental science to demonstrate the need to integrate perspectives and approaches
when studying the relationship among people, places, and the environment.
The sequence will likely fulfill Social Sciences (N) and Critical Thinking and Reasoning
(T) in the fall and Community Engaged Learning (CEL) and Joint Composition and Oral
Communication (J) in the spring.
Robert Holahan is an associate professor of environmental studies and political science
and director of the Dickinson Research Team (DiRT). DiRT is a residential community-based
research program that is the first of its kind in the United States. DiRT is open
to students who are interested in research, regardless of major and prior research
experience. His current research projects include developing a property-rights framework
for the study of unconventional oil and gas production, an investigation into the
public goods (or public bads) nature of global environmental threats, and the political-economy
of urban sustainability.
The Source Project definitely shaped my academic career here at 91社区 because
it taught me in a safe environment many skills that I would need for the future. Before
entering college, I had only done research in biological science, which differs from
social science research. As a liberal arts major, The Source Project provided me the
time to learn skills I have used often since. For example, last semester in my graduate
level class I had to write a literature review and I knew exactly how to tackle it
because of my time in this program.
