Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Doctoral Degree Debates in the USA

New Era for Ph.D. Education
A Decline in Doctorates
The World View - Doctoral Education: Too Much?
Wrong Incentives for British Doctoral Programs?
Sociologists Blast Doctoral Rankings
How Doctoral Graduates Fare
Women Lead in Doctorates

The plagiarism police deserve thanks for defending the honour of the PhD

Education: The PhD factory

Give postdocs a career, not empty promises

How to Conduct Ph.D./Doctoral Viva

1. From Aberystwyth University
2. From Higher Education Review
3. University of Southampton
4. The University of Edinburg
5. Penny Tinkler and Carolyn Jackson
6. Penny Tinkler and Carolyn Jackson - PPT
7. Alison Crerar

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Critical Historiography of Science: Rajan Gurukkal

The following write up by Ann Mary is based on the lecture on Critical Historiography of Science delivered by Rajan Gurukkal, at Centre for Contemporary Studies, (CCS), Indian Institute of Science, (IISc) Bangalore on 29 April 2012. Thank you Ann for making the talk available for others.

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The talk began by defining historiography. Historiography is understood as a story about doing history.This talk traced out a historiography of science by locating the field around two dominant positions.

1.From the perspective of the Scientist: The Scientist , who “does” a history of science usually asks the following questions : Who, What, When and Where. This practice is useful for a familiarization with the vocabulary/ language of the field within which the Scientist is working.

2.From the perspective of the Historian : A Historian attempts to create an explanation for the above questions by asking “ How” and “Why”. This practice, within history of science, often becomes a mere social history of scientific practices.

Both of these positions have shaped methods and debates in the field of enquiry known as the history of science.

1. Boris Hessen’ works in 1927: Disciplinary beginnings of history of science.The questions about method from the earlier mentioned two viewpoints are already seen here in its initial forms. The Internalists believe that the scientist engages in an activity which works in an autonomous sphere of knowledge production. The Externalists believe that all the activities of scientists are driven by socio- economic (external) conditions.

2.Robert Merton: Moves the influence of external factors into the activity of research itself. External factors here refer to the sociological factors (like the influences of the teacher on the student as motivation) which constitutes the field of scientific knowledge production. Sociologist influences history of science. The scientist’s centrality continues in this tradition but the “protective belt” around knowledge begins to become visible.

3.Ludwig Fleck (1935): Possible to associate with Merton. Views scientific facts as products of a “thought collective “(Denkkollektiv) . The historian of science can thus study scientific fact as a sociological “product.” (Denkstil)

The Manhattan Project and the World War II are an important phase for the history of science. The scientist as engaged in a child like “innocence” in the pursuit of “truth” is reaffirmed. It is easy to see the association with the apoliticality of the chronological list of “Inventions and Discoveries” that the Scientist begins to see as a “history of science”. The relationship with “external” consequences/ causes is rearticulated as new debates of the “Big Science”.

Thomas Kuhn’ s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) shakes the foundational idea of “truth” as the end of the march of reason. Talks of the social construction of “truths”.

There gradually emerges a way of producing knowledge about science which is more conscious about uncertainties than the earlier certainty about truth. Heisenberg and Gellman demonstrate this in their insistence on the denial of predictability as the ends of scientific activity.

With the emergence of postmodernism within academics, history of science further discusses how orders are created to impose form on unpredictability. Thus, narratives and grand narratives are taken up for study as constructive acts. A shift towards the subjectivities of the scientist leads to attempts at producing knowledges like “ a non European history of science”.

Certain trends within history of science are now once again reaffirming the division between the two points of view of the historian and the scientist. An insistence that this distinction needs to be maintained is noted in the works of historians of science.The lecturer perceives this to be a back to basics situation (useless for epistemology within history of science).

How do these intellectual traditions affect the historian of science who is attempting to write a history?

The notion that inventions arise by building up on previous “related” inventions deters the historian of science. This notion can be associated with the belief that science is the progress of reason. But when the historian of science attempts to reconstitute a history by deriving from this idea of linearity (which translates as chronology of “Inventions and Discoveries”), there are huge gaps which cannot be explained.

These gaps arise because of several factors. Two of them are:

a) Accidental inventions and discoveries : An attempt is made to “explain” these by fitting them in with previously produced knowledge.

b) Incompleteness as cause for producing new knowledge: Scientific discoveries sometimes emerge from certain systems of thought and branch off into completely unrecognizable new forms.
For Example : Einstein’s work can be perceived as an attempt to rework and provide examples for Newton’s classical physics. But the establishment of Einstein’ s work became a groundwork in itself for new work. A lot of Newton’s work remains to be explored even today.
(Like Derrida’ s 1966 lecture when he tried to give a tribute to Strauss. Ended up questioning the very assumptions of Strauss’ thought)

How does the historian of science reconsititute knowledge then?
The historian of science needs to perceive events (The inventions and discoveries list, the social history of scientific catalogues) as evidence to reconstitute the processes at work.

A Deleuzian analogy was used here. The historian of science sees “the spots on the surface” But when the historian digs deeper, she reached crossroads and needs to consciously choose trajectories that she can best justify. Here is where the subjectivity of the historian comes into play (including theoretical preferences).

The historian must be aware of theory as an illusory unification that gives wholeness to the visible and ill fitting parts.
(The analogy of the arc of a circle was used. The arc becomes cognitively identifiable and useful only if the illusion of the circle is conceptualized. It is this activity that a critical historian of science would engage in)

The historian must be beware of the possibility of constituting speculative evidence.
Example :The Indian Philosopher Kanika was aware of the potential of the atom. (Sphota model) But can the historian of science who is writing the story of nuclear physics in the 19th century use this information? No. Because the association is nearly impossible to support with evidence (as far as we know now).

The historian of science , must work with “an absent cause” ( Analogy: The historian does not even have the smoke but only the ash to work with, fire needs to be re raked). Must abandon the idea of writing the “one “ true story of the history of science.

Standard Questions asked in MPhil/PhD Vivas

1. What is your research question?
2. What is your methodology?
3. How does your research methodology justify your research question?
4. Why did you do this research?-Research gap
5. Do your research question and methodology reflect in the title? How?
6. Why did you choose these films/these photographs/this institution/text for study? (The answer should come from the nature of research question and not person choice, preference, or guide suggested etc.)
7. Justification for methodology. Why did you chose this method/methodology and not another one?
8. Why didn't you chose Indian texts /films?

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Teach Talk: A Contrarian View of MITx: What Are We Doing!?

Teach Talk: A Contrarian View of MITx: What Are We Doing!?:

'via Blog this'

Stanford's open courses raise questions about true value of elite education | Inside Higher Ed

Stanford's open courses raise questions about true value of elite education | Inside Higher Ed:

'via Blog this'

Princeton, Penn and Michigan join the MOOC party | Inside Higher Ed

Princeton, Penn and Michigan join the MOOC party | Inside Higher Ed:

'via Blog this'

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Ecological Crises, Digital Humanities and New Political Assemblies--Lecture Notes

Following notes are by Ann Mary of Bruno Latour's talk on 23 March at, National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore on "Ecological Crises, Digital Humanities and New Political Assemblies"

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If an ecological debate occurs, it usually goes along the lines of “Nature” versus “technology”, “Humans” versus “The Planet” and so on.

This is because it is the “legitimate” (or the outsider’s) way of looking at the debate.This way of making sense of the issue stems from an unfamiliarity with practices of science.

(For example : In the climate gate fiasco of 2009, a big fuss was created over emails sent between scientists. To the extent that things were said along the lines of “Global warming is a conspiracy”. But for people who practice say, theoretical physics, it is a perfectly normal thing to produce “fact” based on email exchange)

These are a few myths he discussed:

1. That knowledge is produced in a scientific field as fact with no value.

2. There is an institution which decides the conditions under which truth can be produced in a scientific field.(Unlike “pure sciences”, law is an instance where the institution provides or sanctions “legal truths”)

To locate where these myths come, Latour looks at the core concept of Modern and its association with Nature. Both of these are associated with West.

The sanction for “the truth” of science comes from the concept of a Modern West.The locus of the Modern is the progress of reason over Nature, something which was the basis for the whole idea of studying other “cultures”.

Latour turns around this anthropology onto the modern itself.Latour questions the notion that “Nature” was a politically free category of fact finding which the modern Westerner engaged in. He states that within the practices of science, it becomes more obvious that there was no unique “natural” entity that could be studied without value judgements.

If Western “Modern” s basic assumption is called into question in practices, then how can we start making sense of entities by locating them within their “modes of existence”?(he isn’t referring to just physical objects, but concepts which have a legitimate way of being understood within their institutions : For example : Law and legal truths must be understood with reference to the conditions which sanction their legality,viz. the institution of law).

If Nature ceases to be the terrain where “objects” of study could be taken up, then how do we study and solve questions like ecological crises? In a debate on ecological crisis, it can no longer be said that “Nature” is the mediator of the debate.

Latour creates a project called Digital Humanities where ecological concerns must and can talk in the differences that exist at the levels in which groups/individuals have understood the “Modern” . The debate must threaten the “modernizing” project by calling into question the differences in the experience of modernity in practice.

(The whole lecture sounded like cultural studies in science. And when he was talking about diplomacy and resolution, U R Ananthamurthy mentioned another sense of conflict resol from Indian traditions. That the word “Upaya” meant “Tactic” with a sense of coming closer and also “metaphor”. Not a complete closure like the usual translation “Solution” suggests )

If anyone remembers what he said about the truth conditions of religion, please please do type it out here. I have been trying to remember desperately. He said something that the truth conditions for religion( I dont know if he was talking of Catholicism) was something..... about belief or human nature)