Call For Papers, Special Issue on Undergraduate Research in the Arts and Humanities, Spring 2013

Cliché though it may be, when many of us think of undergraduate research, we naturally think of the STEM disciplines where the lab setups make it easy to bring students into ongoing scientific projects. The social sciences have recently caught up to STEM disciplines, but what about those of us in the humanities?

How can an undergraduate student complete a meaningful, archival research project in history or art history during his of her short undergraduate education? Can a student studying rhetoric and professional communication complete an ethnographic study of writers in a workplace during one summer research experience? How can a literature student develop a textual project that builds on rather than replicates existing scholarship in that field? Does a theater student’s year-long endeavor to write and produce a new one-act play constitute undergraduate research? How exactly can faculty members include students in our research when our own projects are set up very differently than those in STEM and the social sciences?

Mark S. Schantz reported on a 2007 conference that focused on undergraduate research in the humanities, at which keynote speaker John Churchill enumerated the challenges (or preconceptions) we must overcome: 1) that research in the humanities is characteristically, if not inherently, non-collaborative; 2) that humanities research cannot be neatly segmented for students in the tidy ways that research in the natural sciences can; and 3) that in order to achieve good research results, prohibitively long apprenticeships are necessary for humanities students, particularly in the realms of language expertise and other highly specialized fields of knowledge.

The challenges to undergraduate research are great but certainly not insurmountable. Schantz later argues that only “the weight of encrusted tradition” is holding arts and humanities scholars from moving forward with exciting and innovative undergraduate research projects.

In the PURM 2.2 Spring 2013 Special Issue on Undergraduate Research in the Arts and Humanities, we invite pieces from students, faculty, and administrators that delve into the challenges and the innovations on your campus and in your experience. Topics might include

• How faculty members can invite and support students to participate in their own ongoing research agendas
• How students might collaborate with faculty and other students in an apprenticeship model of arts and humanities research
• How faculty and students overcome the perceived and institutional boundaries to undergraduate research in the arts and humanities
• How institutions can support, encourage, and recognize undergraduate research in the arts and humanities.

PURM accepts manuscripts on a rolling basis. To be considered for the Special Issue on Undergraduate Research in the Humanities, Spring 2013, manuscripts must be received by November 1, 2012. Any questions regarding PURM, the submission and review process, or article inquiries for the Special Issue may be directed to Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark, Managing Editor, PURM. All other inquires may be directed to Dr. Mathew H. Gendle, Editor-in-Chief, PURM.

Schantz, M.S. (2008). CUR Focus: Undergraduate research in the humanities: Challenges and prospects. CUR Quarterly, 29(2).