Program

Thinking and theorizing higher education: anthropologies and epistemologies

This year’s PhD course will address the underlying anthropologies and epistemologies that might influence our research on educational processes in higher education.

When analyzing educational phenomena and practice, our analyses will imply some view(s) on what it means for a human body to be engaged in the practice. How we read and write theory in our research is always influenced by normative ideas of human experience.

If we leave these views implicit or untheorized when researching higher education, we risk drawing on stereotypical or common-sensical opinions of the human and the social world. We risk bringing theories or theoretical elements that express conflicting anthropologies and epistemologies into play. Or we might risk drawing on metaphors from the non-human realm, such as machines or computers, without recognizing the potential pitfalls of such views. 

But we can also turn the perspective around: By exploring the implicit or explicit views of the human being, we might discover a profound source of theoretical creativity and critical thinking in how we orient ourselves in theoretical labor—in the theories, practices, and ourselves.

This critical potential will be thoroughly discussed in the PhD course. The primary resources will be your thinking and PhD work-in-progress, but also the thinking we find in key texts a) on higher education — by authors such as Biggs, Barnett, and Humboldt, and b) from the phenomenological and hermeneutical traditions — by Schütz, Merleau-Ponty, and Gadamer.

Overarching questions include:

• What kind of embodied (if not ‘disembodied’) subject is developed in the texts?
• How do the texts (directly or indirectly) combine subjective and objective perspectives on the human and its environment?
• What image of agency is developed in the texts?
• What relationships between the subject and society are developed in the texts?
• What questions do the texts pose to your practical experience—and vice versa?
• How can thinking, reading, and writing better be integrated into our research practices

The three days will be organized as a round-table seminar, a collaborative platform where we will read and discuss each text closely. Participants will take turns leading the readings and discussions, fostering a sense of shared responsibility and contribution. The course leaders will also give introductions that bring central aspects and concepts to our attention.

Dates:

11. December 2024
12. December 2024
13. December 2024

Compulsory assignment - before the course

Write a letter addressed to the participants in the course, where you try to explain to us a phenomenon, issue, or concept you are currently trying to understand in your PhD project. We want your text to be an attempt to articulate and open up something that is more or less unclear or unresolved in your thinking right now. Submit your draft by email to Dagrun Engen, deadline: 01. December 2024

Evaluation, course credits and participation

Attendance on campus is mandatory. Submission after the seminar of a final paper (max. 10 pages) within the realm of the course content and relating to the course literature.

Admission to PhD courses

Admission requirements

To be admitted to our PhD courses, you must have completed your master’s degree or equivalent education.

You also need to apply to PhD courses via NTNU Søknadsweb, and upload required documentation (diploma etc.).

NTNU students and PhD students admitted to PhD programs at NTNU apply for admission by registering for class via NTNU's studentweb.

Information about PhD courses for external candidates

NTNU Søknadsweb for external candidates

Contact

Contact Hege F. Lie if you would like to apply for the course. 

Core reading

• Schütz, Alfred (1962), 'Common-sense and scientific interpretation of human action', in Maurice Natanson (ed.), Collected Papers I: The Problem of Social Reality (Hague: Martinus Nijhoff), 3-47.
• Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Eye and Mind, Part 1 and 2, Merleau-Ponty, M., & Smith, M. B. (1993). The Merleau-Ponty aesthetics reader: Philosophy and painting. Northwestern University Press.p. 351-360
• Gadamer, Hans-Georg.  ‘The universality of the hermeneutical problem’. Philosophical Hermeneutics, p. 3-17 [finnes også på norsk i Forståelsens filosofi, Cappelen, 2003, s. 52-68].
• Humboldt, Wilhelm von. (2000). Theory of Bildung. In Wesbury, I., Hopman, S., & Riquerts, K. (Eds.) Teaching as a Reflective practice The German Tradition, Routledge. (A pdf scan of this chapter will be distributed)
• Biggs, J.B. and Tang, C.S. ‘Effective teaching and learning for today’s universities’. Teaching for Quality Learning at University (2011), p. 1-16
• Barnett, Ronald. "Knowing and becoming in the higher education curriculum" (2009). Studies in higher education, 34(4), 429-440.

Additional reading

• Schütz, Alfred (1962), 'Concept and theory formation', in Maurice Natanson (ed.), Alfred Schütz. Collected Papers I. The Problem of Social Reality. (Haag, Nederland: Martinus Nijhoff).
• Schütz, Alfred (1975), 'Some structures of the life-World', in Ilse Schütz (ed.), Alfred Schütz. Collected Papers III. Studies in Phenomenological Philosophy (Haag: Martinus Nijhoff), 116-32.
• Schütz, Alfred (1976), 'The dimensions of the social world', in Arvid Brodersen (ed.), Alfred Schütz. Collected Papers II: Studies in Social Theory (Haag, Nederland: Martinus Nijhoff), 20-63.
• Blumer, Herbert (1969), ‘The methodological position of symbolic interactionism’, in Blumer, Herbert, Symbolic Interactionism. Perspecitve and Method. (University of California Press), 1-60
• Merleau-Ponty. ‘Preface’, Phenomenology of Perception. 2012. Trans. D. Landes p. iixx-lxxxv.
• Merleau-Ponty, M. (2004). The World of Perception. Routledge.
• Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 2012. Trans. D. Landes, p. 3-65
• Gadamer, ‘The hermeneutic priority of the question. Truth and Method, Part II, Section 4.3.c
• Gadamer, ‘The hermeneutic relevance of Aristotle. Truth and Method, Part II, Section 4.2.b
• Barnett, ‘The coming of the ecological university. (2011). Barnett, R. (2011). Oxford Review of Education, 37(4), 439-455.
• Barnett, The Philosophy of Higher Education: A Critical Introduction. Routledge. Ch. 1 and 2

Background literature

• Schutz, A. (1962). ‘Phenomenology and the social sciences.’ In Collected papers I: The problem of social reality (pp. 118-139). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
• Merleau-Ponty. ‘Phenomenology and the sciences of man’, in Primacy of Perception. 43-95
• Merleau-Ponty. (1973). The Prose of the World.  Northwestern University Press