This project seminar takes as its focus the city of Berlin, not as something singular, but as essentially multiple. These Berlins are shaped by multiple legacies and inhabited by multiple beings, home to layers of infrastructure and waves of migration; the streets are filled with sounds and the air is full of particles. All of these different elements make the city a site of creative, unexpected, and sometimes fugitive forms of life, but they do not always co-exist in peaceful (or easy to understand) ways. In this seminar we invite students to work with others in groups to collectively research a topic that makes evident and helps us to grasp the many Berlins. To do so, we propose the idea of the “multi-“ as a useful analytic for ethnographic urban research, exploring multispecies relations, multisensory research practices, multimodal communication, and multiplex histories of the Berlins and their surroundings. Together we will read key texts relating to the “multi-“ in contemporary ethnographic research to gain a shared theoretical and methodological grounding. We will also make collective excursions within the Berlins to help inspire us and to practice our maturing research skills, and we will learn how to analyse and present complex qualitative data in multiple ways. In group work you will develop your own research projects and practice different ethnographic methods and techniques.
The seminar will be in English as will most of the readings. However,
students are welcome to speak German in class as well as submit their
course requirements in German.
- Course owner: Dr. Andrew Gilbert (he/him)