Part I: The Fields: Professional Profile Assignments
Your CV assignment has THREE Parts, due as indicated on syllabus:
1) CV: For suggestions about what could be on it, see handouts on"Applying for Jobs" [on vitas], and "Teachers and Students" [on tenure], as well as the section off the Germanic Studies hoome page on professional organizations: http://www.utexas.edu/depts/german/medialinks.html#proforg
2)Revised CV and statement of purpose:
- redo CV according to comments
- turn in a time-line sketch of your professional development over the next 4-5 years, designed to make your CV look like you could be hired by the time you're one on the job market. Include issues from the handouts like:
- what funding you expect
- which professional organization you will join (when and why)
- what journals you should be following, and why
- what is your optimal exam schedule for dept. requirements
- schedule of scholarships/fellowships/exchanges will you apply for
- which conference(s) you will try to give papers at (and when)
- what service activities are appropriate for professional profile
BY THE TIME THE SECOND PART IS DUE, YOU'D BETTER BE STARTING ON PART THREE
3)Website of CV
- use the information on personal websites at UT, posted on Germanic Studies Home Page
- follow the directions to request your own disk space
- use the model pages to establish your own website, including your CV
- when complete, print out the screen, and submit to instructor with a note about your URL
- when complete, send an email to k.arens@mail.utexas.edu with the address of your webpage so that it can be hyperlinked to your directory page
- if you don't want to have a real website, submit it on a disk READABLE BY NETSCAPE (i.e. you can't just do it in MS-WORD)
DUE THE DAY OF THE FINAL EXAM
5 % of your final grade is for parts 1 & 2 of this assignment; 5% for part 3.
Part II: The Fields and Their Bibliographic Structures
Practical Research Skills Assignments
Part II of the course is dedicated to introducing four major areas of Germanic studies scholarship today.
These tasks are structured to accomplish three ends:
- the first day of each section introduces the major divisions of scholarship in "Germanic studies" today, in order to consolidate the learning about the professions presented in Part I of the course;
- the second day introduces the structural/institutional links of each of these areas of scholarship (to see how these types of scholarly projects can be translated into teaching, tenor of the research, style of thinking and data in the research to be used, professional and teaching climates associated). Be sure to notice that many journals have home pages, linked to the Germanic Studies home page at <http://www.utexas.edu/depts/german/library.html>. Using these links does not, however, substitute for actually looking at the journals.
- the third day's discussions will focus on practical research assignments, to introduce strategies of research in each field, and to the bibliographical and reference tools which facilitate this research.
BIBLIOGRAPHY PRACTICA ASSIGNMENTS
On four dates indicated on the syllabus, you will turn in reports on a research project assigned for each day. The goal of each of these assignments is to help you to build good research habits, to learn to use standard bibliograhic and reference tools to plan out a project (especially when you are more or less starting from zero on a project and need to work expediently), to learn how to develop a research or paper topic efficiently (and in light of existing time and materials resources), and to indicate how a class research project can even lead to reports, theses, conference presentations, articles, or dissertations.
Each written assignment will be no more than two typed pages in length; its structure will differ slightly in each case, but should include explicit and well-considered statements on the following stages of bibliographic references. In most cases, you can start doing the assignment with the books on the purchase and reserve lists appended to the course syllabus (note particularly Fromkin, Richardson, and Wortman), and with the titles on the MA/PhD Reading Lists from the Department of Germanic Studies that you have received as a handout. Each assignment will require about four hours in the library, after you consult basic reference books.
FORMAT FOR ALL BIBLIOGRAPHIC ASSIGNMENTS
The single page you write should include the following topics in a narrative that indicates a flow -- to reflect the LOGIC of the process, even more than particular results
Step 1: Starting out with a general topic
(and PLEASE remember to use your guides to bibliograpy books to answer these questions)
- what reference books do you consult first on the assigned topic (dictionaries, encyclopedias, historical reference handbooks from reference collection); this can include material from UT's Library OnLine, but should by no means be confined to electronic sources.
- what do you find in each that is a key to narrowing the topic (that is, how do you evaluate the "canonical" information given in the references; what are the key terms that will lead you to a doable project)
- what kinds of more specialized handbooks/overview presentations does this preliminary narrowing lead you to (e.g. leads on scholars' names, particular journals, overview texts; areas well-worked and not worked)?
Step 2: The overview
- what kinds of more specialty handbooks are you looking for (e.g. series like "Erträge der Forschung," "Wege der Forschung," Metzler handbooks)
- what topics seem "worth" working on (enough data, not too much data, replications, etc?)
- what bibliographies or bibliographic data bases will you need to consult (preliminary assessment, including which ones you'll have to go to paper on)
Step 3: Refining the topic
- what key words do and don't work on your data bases?
- identify idiosyncracies of the bibliographic sources (e.g. what aspects of drama aren't found in the MLA data base? cultural history?)
- when do you know you have enough to start?
- what can you find in UTCAT? Is it worth looking at yet?
Step 4: Finalizing a topic
- what is the exact topic, narrowed to the point of a 20-pp. seminar paper or article (100-200 words; see section on GS homepage on writing abstracts)?
- what journal might want it (check MLA DIrectory of Periodicals or other Guide to Publishing; also journal home pages, as noted above)?
- what conferences might want it, under what circumstances (check programs in journals; many on reserve or on-line)?
- any application to teaching (check UT's curriculum at all levels, and possibly in other programs; check graduation requirements)?
EXACT BIBLIOGRAPHIC ASSIGNMENT TOPICS
Linguistics Topic
You have been assigned a paper on any topic in phonology.
Decide what the key terms/search keys are for this field of linguistics.
What would change in your search strategy if the following variations were to be implemented?:
- phonology and comprehension of the sounds of language
- learning phonological systems
- formal notational systems of phonology?
Applied Linguistics Topic
You have been assigned a paper on any topic in reading.
Decide what the key terms/search keys are for this field of linguistics
What would change in your search strategy if the following variations were to be implemented?:
- reading and distance learning
- reading and technology
- reading and comprehension
- L1 and L2 reading
- reading and skill transfer
Literary Topic
Pick either Hartmann von Aue, G.E. Lessing, or Franz Grillparzer.
Decide what the key terms/search keys are for the author.
What basic references did you use to find these?
What would change in your search strategy if the following variations were to be implemented?:
- Hartman's literature versus Hartman's sources and transmission
- Lessing or Schnitzler's plays versus their prose (and "prose" is a different genre in each case)
- Schnitzler and Otto Weininger instead of Schnitzler
- Günter Grass instead of a dead author?
Cultural/Intellectual History Topic
Pick either Johann Gottfried Herder or Friedrich von Schiller.
Decide what the key terms/search keys are for the author.
What basic references did you use to find these?
What would change in your search strategy if the following variations were to be implemented?:
- Herder or Schiller added to Goethe
- Herder or Schiller added to Kant
- Herder or Schiller added to Weimar
For Part III of Course:
Introduction to Theory in the Humanities
Assignments in Practical Analysis
Part III of the course is an introduction to theory and analysis in the humanities; it will introduce you to major "schools" of analysis that are widely represented in literary, cultural, and linguistic studies.
Each "school" will be presented in terms of its theoretical statements(what it says about how analyses of linguistic, aesthetic, or cultural data can or ought to be analyzed, and what kind of results can be expected), and then as an application (particularly as a way to generate a "text interpretation" of the sort required on departmental examinations).
As indicated on the syllabus, on the second day treating each set of schools, you will have due a pair of two precis, as described on the following pages.
The first precis will be an analysis of ONE of the essays you have read (of your choice, done in the format presented on the following sheets); the second, the set-up of an interpretation of the short story appended (Kleist's "Bettelweib von Locarno"), according to the principles, methods, and ethic of that school's approach.
See Precis Handout for details on how to do a precis.
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