Assignments

Written Assignments

  1. Before every class, each student will be expected to submit 1 well-posed question or comment on the readings. This is due to be submitted by noon on the Thursday before every class (with both the question/comment and your name included in the text of the message). Each week, students from a different university will have the responsibility of organizing these questions or comments into appropriate categories, which will then provide a framework for dialogue during each class. These integrated lists must be posted for all seminar participants at first thing in the morning of the day they are to be discussed.
  2. Throughout the course each student will be assigned the responsibility of serving as a discussion leader for selected readings. For each reading you lead, you are responsible for preparing a 1-2 page summary of the key contributions of the author to theory and/or empirical evidence in the field. These are to be distributed to class participants first thing in the morning of the day they are discussed.
  3. The main assignment is to pick one topic of interest to you and trace its intellectual history/development, identify what you see as the most critical theoretical and empirical questions that warrant research on this topic today, and propose a research design suitable for addressing these questions. This paper is due the final day of the term.