PhD courses at Department of Thematic Studies (TEMA)

Filosofiska fakultetens karriärplanering för doktorander

Ontologies, epistemologies and methodologies of interdisciplinary studies (5.5 credits)

Course Period: Weeks 2–8, 2023 (first week – 4 hours, subsequent weeks – 2 hours per week)
Language: English
Course content: Link to Syllabus. The course offers a critical introduction to the history, philosophy, sociology and practice of interdisciplinary studies. Interdisciplinarity is considered in historical contexts and in relation to traditional academic disciplines. We discuss how disciplinary norms and epistemic models organize academic research, and to what extent and how are they challenged by interdisciplinary approaches. The course also addresses ontological assumptions upon which different interdisciplinary traditions rest and that they project, and examines interdisciplinarity as a particular type of cognition. We focus on interdisciplinary interpretations of truth and objectivity, address issues of communicative rationality and social studies of science and technology. The course proceeds to compare different kinds and forms of interdisciplinary research, its relational dynamics, and methodological premises. We critically analyse differences in interdisciplinary collaborations between the humanities, social sciences, hard and natural sciences, etc. The course also tackles the relations between interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, postdisciplinarity and antidisciplinarity both within and outside the Western-centric knowledge production paradigm. Finally, we touch upon the research policy milieus for interdisciplinary studies and possible career paths for interdisciplinary researchers.
Examination: The examination consists of one individually written course paper and active participation in seminars through general discussion and presenting the draft of the future course paper at the course conference
Course coordinator: Madina Tlostanova
Enrolment: To enrol for the course, contact the course coordinator.

Methods: In the field (7,5 credits)

Period: Weeks 3–12 2023, part-time
Language: English
Course content: Link to Syllabus. The course is an introduction to several key qualitative methods in generating empirical material. The participants will familiarize themselves theoretically with a selection of qualitative methods and will apply them through practical exercises. The course centers on a selection of qualitative empirical methods that are relevant and central both for solid research at the PhD level and for the participants’ future career as scholars that conduct research of their own and assess and review others’ scholarship. The course also addresses research ethics. The course is designed to provide ample opportunities for reflection and discussion of perspectives, theories and methods in qualitative research.
Teaching & examination forms: The course will take place on campus (not on-line), and participants are expected to attend all sessions. In between sessions, participants will perform practical exercises.
Course coordinators: Sofia Morberg Jämterud & Corinna Kruse
Enrolment: The course admits a limited number of PhD students. If you’re interested in enrolling,
please e-mail the course coordinators with a brief description of yourself and your expectations of the course.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Introductory Course in Research Ethics (4.5 credit points)

Course period: Weeks 9–13, 2023
Language: English
Course content: Link to Syllabus. This is an introductory course in research ethics within the social sciences and humanities and it is open to doctoral students, supervisors and researchers at Linköping University. The course covers research ethical problems and concepts, such as autonomy and informed consent, scientific fraud and misconduct and the researcher's responsibility for the consequences of his/her research. Research ethical declarations and Swedish legislation on research ethics are introduced. Field-specific research problems are discussed as well as research ethical problems experienced by the course participants. After completing the course, the student should be able to identify and describe common research ethical problems, suggest solutions to the problems and justify the solutions by means of basic ethical principles. The student should also have proficiency in filling in an application for ethical trial of research. The course will in main be taught at campus Valla with some lectures/seminars taught via Zoom.
Teaching forms: The course consists of lectures and seminars.
Examination forms: Seminar attendance is mandatory. One but only one lecture/seminar can be missed and compensated for by means of a make-up assignment. In addition to active participation in the seminar a short, individual paper to be discussed in a seminar should be prepared. In the paper, the course participant analyses a research ethical problem related to her own research project/field of research.
Course directors: Elin Palm, Center for Applied Ethics and Johanna Nählinder, LiU library
Enrolment: To enrol, contact the course coordinator Monica Wise at the latest: February 17th 2023.

More information

Workshop on Research Communication

Time and place:1 March, 13.15-15 in Lethe
Language: English
Content: So much research is being published today that publication in itself is no guarantee to be read. This workshop will focus on what you can do yourself to make your research known. We will discuss the role of social media, ORCID and personal communication and how you can make your own communication strategy to make research dissemination efficient and less time-consuming. The workshop is led by Johanna Nählinder, LiU Library.
Enrolment: To enrol contact Carin Ennergård

Environmental science in an interdisciplinary context (2 hp)

Part 2 of "Ontologies, epistemologies and methodologies of interdisciplinary studies" for PhD students at Environmental Change.
Course period: Weeks 10–13 2023, part-time
Language: English
Course content: Link to Syllabus. This sub-course focuses on deepening perspectives connected to Environmental Science, and focuses on societal relevance within environmental science, environmental science and innovation, participatory methodology and co-creation. The participants also immerse themselves in the course literature with a focus on their own dissertation projects.
Teaching & examination forms: The course includes four physical/digital seminars. The first three course elements require that the participants come well prepared and have read and reflected on the course literature, as well as completed a short interview with senior researchers (sem 1). Before the last seminar, the participants must send in their individual texts, read others' and comment on one of the other participants' texts. The course is examined through active participation in the seminars and with an individual written assignment. 
Course coordinators: Tina Neset
Enrolment: To enrol for the course, contact the course coordinator.

Methods: Analysis (7,5 credits)

Course period: Weeks 13–23 2023, part-time
Language: English
Course content: Link to Syllabus. The course is an introduction to several key methods for analyzing empirical material. The participants will familiarize themselves theoretically with a selection of analysis methods and will apply them through practical exercises. The course centers on a selection of analysis methods that are relevant and central both for solid research at the PhD level and for the participants’ future career as scholars that conduct research of their own and assess and and review others’ scholarship. The course also addresses research ethics in analysis. The course is designed to provide ample opportunities for reflection and discussion of perspectives, theories and methods in
qualitative research.
Teaching & examination forms: The course will take place on campus (not on-line), and participants are expected to attend all sessions. In between sessions, participants will perform practical exercises.
Course coordinators: Sofia Morberg Jämterud & Corinna Kruse
Enrolment: The course admits a limited number of PhD students. If you’re interested in enrolling,
please e-mail the course coordinators with a brief description of yourself and your expectations of the course.

Reimagining the humanities (3 or 10 credits)

Course period: TBA
Language: English
Course content: The humanities have had a long history in the constitution of western knowledge, from the Renaissance to the shift in the organization of knowledge in the late nineteenth century through its division into the natural and human sciences. The very modifier “sciences” was the beginning of the humanities’ demise that we witness today, including the recent efforts to reanimate them through posthumanism and as posthumanities and through interdisciplinary misalliance with technologies and hard sciences. The central question of this course can then be boiled down to what does it mean to be human today? While claiming the necessity of keeping the humanities element in education and research, the course problematizes the way humanities have been previously understood and implemented, and reflects on possible ways of their rethinking to better answer the challenges of contemporary world such as climate change, mass migration, the post-peace condition we all share, the continuous erasing of memories and cosmologies, etc. No matter how critical we are of the humanities we have to agree that there are certain human issues or even issues of the human as such that require complex relational and critical epistemic attention and cannot be given up to hard sciences and technologies that are easily subsumed by the normalized economic growth and political status quo paradigm. Such are matters of immigration in today’s Europe or Earth exploitation (e.g. extractivism) globally, that are impossible to solve technologically if we stay within the same axiology that created these problems and that does not care about the well-being of human and other lives and the Earth.
Teaching and examination forms: The course consists of lectures and seminars. It can be offered both online and irl depending on the pandemic situation. The examination consists of an individual written course paper and active participation in seminars through general discussion. If the course is taken without the final paper submitted it is 3 ECTS. With the final paper it is 10 ECTS.
Course coordinator: Madina Tlostanova  
Enrolment: To enrol, contact Olga Zabalueva (course administrator)

Forskningsprocess, metodologiska grunder och etiska överväganden i barn- och barndomsforskning (7,5 hp)

Kursperiod: 21 aug – 27 okt 2023
Språk: Svenska. Examinationsuppgifter kan skrivas på svenska eller engelska
Kursinnehåll: Länk till kursplan. Kursen syftar till att ge den forskarstuderande möjlighet att pröva att skriva fram tidigare forskning med utgångspunkt i eget avhandlingsprojekt. Kursen lägger en bred grund för ett vetenskapligt förhållningssätt, vetenskapliga arbetsmetoder och grundläggande steg i forskningsprocessen om barn. Kursen fokuserar på viktiga steg i forskningsprocessen, specifikt med fokus på hur tidigare forskning är grundläggande i formulering av ett forskningsproblem och forskningsfrågor, val av metod (för datainsamling och analys) och i analysarbetet. I kursen diskuteras hur man kritiskt förhåller sig till tidigare forskningsstudier, teoretiska och metodologiska val. Etiska förutsättningar och regelverk för forskning om barn presenteras och diskuteras. Tidigare forskning presenteras i form av en skriftlig redovisning och ligger till grund för kollegial granskning och diskussion kring hur tidigare forskning kan presenteras och hur den kan informera framtida avhandlingsarbetet.
Undervisnings- och examinationsformer: Kursen examineras genom aktivt deltagande i seminarier där skriftligt individuellt arbete presenteras och diskuteras.
Kursansvariga: Asta Cekaite & Håkan Löfgren
Anmälan: Kontakta kursansvariga om du vill anmäla dig till kursen.

Key Concepts in Environmental Science (10 credits)

Course period: Septemer –  October 2023
Language: English
Course content: Link to Syllabus. Having completed the course, the student should be able to:

• Demonstrate a conceptual understanding of sustainable development.
• Demonstrate a basic understanding of how sustainable development and related concepts are used within scientific practices and discussions as well as in public debates.
• Reflect on trends, contestations and interpretations of selected key concepts related to sustainable development in interdisciplinary environmental science.

Being able to apply selected key concepts to the student’s ongoing PhD research project.
Teaching and examination forms: This course is based on individual work and active participation in seminar discussions associated to the theoretical content provided by the course Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Sustainable Development (IPSD). The content of every lecture or seminar should result in a small text with a reflection. More specifically, as a result from each of the 6 activities from the IPSD course, 6 different reports (1 to 3 pages each), containing a reflection connecting the knowledge provided by the specific activity with the PhD aims, methodologies, theories, or perspectives, should be delivered.
At the end of the IPSD course, each PhD student must deliver a final report (suggestion of 5 to 15 pages) connecting the content of the course with the PhD project. Notice that the content of the 7 reports can, but doesn’t need to, be incorporated in the final report.
The Final Project shall include a description of the specific objectives, aim and context of the PhD project.
Course director: Myanna Lahsen, myanna.lahsen@liu.se
Enrolment: To enrol, contact the course coordinator and Susanne Eriksson

Interdisciplinary perspectives on sustainable development (3 credits)

Period: September – October, 2023
Language: English
Course content: Link to Syllabus. The focus of the course is on key concepts and analytical approaches that are central to sustainability analysis within natural science, social science and humanities, as well as public debates on sustainability. The course provides an understanding of how key concepts and analytical approaches have evolved over time, are defined and applied in both scientific and policy contexts. Through the multidisciplinary approach, the course will address both natural and social science and humanities perspectives.
Lectures will provide contexts to key concepts and analytical approaches of importance for understanding and assessing sustainable development in various contexts. The seminars will be used to discuss the students’ readings of the literature and their understanding and assessment of strengths and weaknesses of the concepts and analytical approaches in general and also in relation to their ongoing PhD projects.
Teaching and examination forms: Active participation at seminars, the participants must be able to show that they have read and reflected on the literature.
The participants also write a reflection paper (3-5 pages) with the aim to relate relevant parts of the course to their ongoing PhD projects. The paper is presented and discussed at the examination seminar. The participants have access to 0,5h supervision during the writing process.
Course director: Myanna Lahsen, myanna.lahsen@liu.se
Enrolment: To enrol, contact the course coordinator and Susanne Eriksson

More information

Feminist ethics of care – geneaologies and uses from mothering to respons-ability (an adaptable reading course) (2,5 hp)

Course period: Flexible, the course is taught on demand 2022–2023, 50% study pace
Language: English
Course content: Link to Syllabus. Joan Tronto, a feminist philosopher and theorist of democracy, defined an ethic of care as any approach to personal, social, moral, and political life that starts from the reality that all human beings need and receive care and give care to others. The care relationships among humans are part of what mark us as human beings, that we always are interdependent beings. Early on, Joan Tronto and Berenice Fisher defined care widely: "On the most general level, we suggest that caring be viewed as a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our 'world' so that we can live in it as well as possible.” STS and multispecies feminist scholars took this understanding of care to a both local and planetary level, at once. Donna Haraway, keen to not root politics in identity, purity or mothering, introduced the powerful concept of “respons-ability”. This makes care, care work and caring a reciprocal activity of attuning into also to the nonhumans that co-constitute the world, enabling all kinds of responses to the continuous crisis of living in capitalist ruins in the Anthropocene. María Puig de la Bellacasa’s 2017 book Matters of Care, following Haraway’s trajectory of multispecies care, bring together three dimensions of care – as an affective state, a material-doing and practice, and an ethico-political obligation. Architectural theorist Elke Krasny et al’s edited volume on Radicalizing Care brings together curatorial and creative practices, hacking and design in a multidisciplinary compilation that evidence the versatility of feminist care ethics today. In this course, we read Tronto, Bellacasa, Haraway and selected chapters from Krasny, alongside critiques of feminist ethics of care (as a virtue ethic of individualism and self-control) and two individually selected theoretical texts on the topic that suit the research of the course participants.
Teaching and examination: The joint reading is distributed and individual readings selected before the course start. We then meet for joint zoom reading seminars on two occasions. Course participants are expected to prepare for each joint zoom webinar and to present their own individual reading and take-home message from the joint and from the individually selected readings. The two webinar presentations, one for each seminar, form the basis for examination.
Course coordinator: Cecilia Åsberg
Enrolment: To enrol for the course, contact the course coordinator
More information about the course can be found here.

Engaging with Normativity: Normative Embodiment and Normativity in Medical/Technological Knowledge Practices and Policy-Work (6 credits)

Course period: TBA
Language: English
Course content: The course gives an introduction to approaches that are central for researching normativity within STS, feminist STS, post-phenomenology, critical phenomenology including e.g. feminist phenomenology, and ethics/policy-work. It also engages with questions of how to address and engage with normativity in policy-work, for example on ethically pertinent questions. It presents key theoretical positions on how to conceptualize and analyze embodied normativity and normativity in perception; enacted normativity in different scientific, medical and other technological knowledge
production practices, and normative dimensions of policy-making. The term normativity is understood broadly as including normative dimensions, norms and values, including ethical or political norms and values. Teaching and examination forms: The course participants will be challenged to discuss, critically examine, and compare various perspectives, approaches and concepts. They will read and discuss key texts and be familiarized with the debates on embodied normativity and normativity in perception, enacted normativity in different scientific, medical and other technological knowledge production practices, and normative dimensions of policy-making, from within the fields of STS, feminist STS, post-phenomenology, critical phenomenology including e.g. feminist phenomenology, and ethics/policy-work. They will also be given ample opportunities for reflection and discussion of perspectives, theories and concepts in past research on normativity, and relate this to their own research.
Course coordinator: Kristin Zeiler
Enrolment: To enrol, contact the course coordinator.