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2014-2015 Doctoral Colloquia

The doctoral colloquium is a student-run colloquium that enables graduate students to try out grant proposals, present dissertation chapters, give practice job talks, discuss issues of professional development, and hear visiting speakers. The colloquium usually meets on Mondays at 4:00-5:30pm in the Hagstrum Room (University Hall 201) on those Mondays when there is no scheduled Klopsteg lecture.

Alka Menon (Sociology) coordinated meetings and events for 2014-15.


FALL 2014

October 6
Welcome, planning session for the year, and feedback session on student work in progress

October 20
Reading Group

We chose a couple of different pieces co-authored by speakers who will subsequently be speaking in the Klopsteg lecture series this fall (Javier Lezaun and Norton Wise), and a classic essay by Daston and Galison on "The Image of Objectivity," as Peter Galison will be here and meeting students as part of Chicago Humanities Festival.

The citations of the readings are below:
Kelly, Ann H. and Lezaun, Javier. 2014. "Urban mosquitoes, situational publics, and the pursuit of interspecies separation in Dar es Salaam." American Ethnologist 41(2):368-383.

Wise, M. Norton and Elaine M. Wise. 2002. "Reform in the Garden." Endeavour 26(4):154-159.

Daston, Lorraine and Peter Galison. 1992. "The Image of Objectivity." Representations 40:81-128.

November 3
Feedback on student work in progress

Practice job talk: Marian Craciun
"Contending with Uncertainty: Science, Emotions, and Failure across Talk Therapies"

November 24
Feedback on student work in progress


WINTER 2015

January 12
Feedback on student work in progress and undergraduate program planning

February 2
The current postdoctoral fellows have kindly offered to share their experiences applying for postdocs, with a special focus on how they tailored their applications to an interdisciplinary audience.

February 9
Reading Group

We will be discussing Helen Tilly's book, Africa as Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950. Participants in the Program on African Studies have been invited to join us for this session, as PAS is sponsoring a conference loosely centered around Helen's book during the spring quarter.


SPRING 2015

April 6
Feedback on student work in progress and discuss co-teaching with scientists, led by Tania Munz. We will also select readings for our Spring Reading Group and establish a schedule for the rest of the quarter.

April 20
Our colloquium meeting will be rescheduled in the form of a field trip later in May.

April 27
Reading Group

The readings are all by scholars participating in the conference and were chosen with an eye to the theme of the conference, "Making Knowledge and the Problem of Place."

The readings are:
Gieryn, Thomas. 2006. "City as Truth-Spot: Laboratories and Field-Sites in Urban Studies. Social Studies of Science1:5-38.
Petryna, Adriana. 2007. "Clinical Trials Offshored: On Private Sector Science and Public Health." BioSocieties 2:21-40.

Murphy, Michelle. 2012. Seizing the Means of Reproduction: Entanglements of Feminism, Health, and Technoscience.Durham: Duke University Press, pp.1-24. (I suggest 1-14 for purposes of our discussion).

May 18