New Geographies, New Pedagogies: Institute of International Studies; UC Berkeley
The structure and goals of "The New Geographies" proposal builds upon the demonstrable comparative advantages of UC Berkeley and on the distinctive qualities, and pedagogically useful attributes, of the Bay Area. First, the Berkeley campus has a virtually unparalleled depth and breadth in area studies. There are 18 area studies programs on campus, covering all the major geographical regions of the world. Second, there is an existing institutional structure -- the Institute of International Studies [IIS] -- whose specific mandate is to facilitate and expedite comparative and transnational research and training and that has long brought areas studies programs together around new intellectual and pedagogic challenges and opportunities. It has also established close working ties with area studies through its Dissertation Workshops3 and faculty-student "cross-generational" Working Groups.4 Third, the social sciences, humanities and professional schools at Berkeley are deeply internationalized; 60% of all the dissertations in progress in these fields are international in focus, while the social sciences lead the nation in raising foreign area funding. Fourth, there are six large undergraduate majors in Asian, Latin American, and Middle Studies Development Studies, the Political Economy of Industrial Societies and American Studies) as well as area studies specializations in Business, Law and Health which represent additional constituencies for "revitalizing area studies." And fifth, but not least, the campus is located in a highly cosmopolitan area -- embracing Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, San Francisco -- of some 7 million people. It is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse regions of the country, in a state which is, and always has been, at the forefront of globalization. This cultural diversity provides a superb "natural laboratory" of diasporic communities -- Italian fishermen, Greek shopowners, Indian software specialists, Somali political refugees, recent Russian migrants, Filipino doctors, Hmong gardeners, Central American farmworkers, or Guatemalan exiles -- in which graduate students can work as a part of their doctoral research training. Most important, it drives home the point that the United States is itself an "area" whose study must itself be "revitalized" in light of its unprecedented global integration.
These compelling strengths of the campus and of its immediate environs provide the foundation for this project. Specifically, the goal of "The New Geographies" is to revitalize area studies through an intellectually-driven set of activities designed to focus on doctoral training under the rubric of "conducting research in globalized sites." These activities have three broad dimensions -- doctoral training, undergraduate instruction in area studies programs, and cross-area theoretically oriented thematic activities under the heading of "traveling theory" -- which permit participation by students and faculty, irrespective of regional and disciplinary orientation.
Next: Activities and Programs
3. These 3-4 day workshops consisting of 12-15 students and 6-8 faculty have been developed by Dr. David Szanton and feature a unique pedagogic style developed over the lasy five years. This model has been successfully deployed in a nine-campus dissertation wpokshop system devoted to African doctoral students funded by the Rockefeller Foundation (see the IIS website: http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/RADW).
4. The self-organizing Working Groups consist of cross area and cross disciplinary configurations of faculty and doctoral students. They are provided limited seed monies for their activities but are linked together through a common set of activities -- seminars, conferences -- under a broad intellectual theme (see, for example, the Environmental Politics program of IIS at: http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/EnvirPol/).
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