SoCo Humanities Research Intensive

Catalog description

Join two Stanford professors for a week of immersive, expert introduction to humanities research. This intensive, one-week course introduces rising sophomores to the excitement and wonder of humanities research, along the way preparing you for independent research projects, for working as a research assistant for a Stanford professor, or just for the next step in your Stanford career. No humanities background is necessary. Think of this class as humanities research in a nutshell: over 5 days, we'll take a deep dive into some of the most important methods and questions driving scholarly research in the humanities. Our laboratory will be the Special Collections Library at Stanford, where we'll conduct hands-on research in ancient and modern books, maps, objects, and manuscripts, from ancient Mesopotamian clay tablets to materials from San Francisco's Chinatown. We're also planning a field trip to the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Over the week, we'll teach you how to formulate a solid research question; how to gather the evidence that will help you to answer that question; how to write up research results; how to critique the research of your fellow students; how to deliver your results in a public setting; and how to write a really great grant proposal. Students who complete this course become eligible for follow-up student research grants during their next year. So if you have a larger project in mind - a capstone project, or even a senior thesis idea - this course can help set the stage for that next step. Learning Goals: Introduction to humanities research methods; Conceptualization of a major humanities research project; Skills and familiarity with working with archival materials; Oral presentation skills.