Professional Training

Professional Training in the Arts and Humanities
Course credits: 7,5 hp

Language of instruction: English

This course, designed for PhD candidates in the Faculty of Arts at Uppsala University, explores the professional practices and values that characterize research and teaching in the arts and the humanities in contemporary university life. It is obligatory for all newly admitted PhD students within the faculty. It is organized as a series of seminars, supplemented by written assignments based on course literature and guest lectures.

Course aims and learning outcomes

The course is designed to offer professional training in core principles and practices of university-level research in the humanities, and to be an advanced theoretical and empirical course in the analysis of the role and significance of humanistic scholarship in contemporary society, in Sweden and in the wider world. Upon completing the course, PhD students should have achieved and demonstrated the following learning outcomes:

• a capability to describe and discuss academic skills and expertise for careers both within and outside academia;
• an awareness of how the university operates, with a particularly emphasis on the collegial system of governance;
• an understanding of how the quality and integrity of research are upheld, with emphasis on the meaning and value of peer review, research ethics and good research practices for scientific research in general and the humanities in particular;
• an understanding of key aspects of the how the system of Swedish and EU research funding has emerged historically and is organized today;
• a critical understanding of how ideas about the public value of research in the Arts and Humanities are constructed and an capability to engage in current discussions regarding its social relevance;
• an awareness of the importance of trans- and interdisciplinary dialogue both within the faculty of arts and humanities and across the university.

Beyond thus enabling students to place themselves in relation to a larger academic context, the course also seeks to encourage interaction and exchange across traditional disciplinary boundaries: both in increased contact among the faculty’s students and research institutions, and in focusing on overarching professional questions that are relevant for the faculty as a whole.

Examination
Performance in the course is graded on a pass/fail scale, on the basis of: 1) compulsory attendance and participation in the various parts of the course; 2) written and oral assignments and essays.