The Division of Social Science is pleased to offer the Knowledge Formations/MAPSS Certificate which affords MAPSS students an opportunity, alongside disciplinary research interests and preparation, to investigate bases upon which humans have for eons claimed to know. 

Students who have completed the certificate in recent years have taken up, from many different conceptual frameworks and methodologies, the question of how humans know. Architects of the certificate have conceived of META academic path in which students learn disciplinary knowledge traditions while also questioning those very traditions. Scholars who orient themselves in this way may become historians of science, sociologists or anthropologists of practice. Professors who have taught the required methods course for the certificate have also decentered human knowing and presence to see how non-human entities inform what people come to know. 

At the same time, some students long to reposition the human body in the process of knowing, diverting from committed Cartesianism, rationalism with its focus on thinking rather than on feeling. Other students, seeing the digital as a novel space for public knowledge, feel strongly called to study ways in which cyberspace is impacting not only knowledge formation but identity formation and politics.  

This quality of interests brought to the table by students and professors associated with the Knowledge Formations Certificate we believe to be both critical and timely. Students who choose Knowledge Formations can expect to achieve the following learning outcomes, which will prepare them for further graduate study. 

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View PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES 

• Read broadly and critically 
• Discover literatures of multiple disciplines 
• Explore relationships between methodologies 
• Develop an innovative research design 
• Collaborate with peers and professors 
• Leverage computer applications for research 
• Develop research data 

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Certificate Requirements

• The Formation of Knowledge MAPSS certificate requires students to take 2 core seminars in two parts--Ways of Knowing I (which will offer an introduction to the study of epistemology/ies) and Ways of Knowing II, which is subject based and will either focus in on ways of exploring a specific topic, say, gender or nature, or new methods such as use of Artificial Intelligence as a prosthesis. Each course counts both toward certificate requirements and the MAPSS Methods Requirement. 
• One additional seminar from a list of recommended courses: e.g. critical theory, introduction to data science or coding, ethnographic knowing. 
• A 30-to-40-page thesis that engages knowledge formation. 
• A fifteen-minute presentation of thesis at spring colloquium 
• A short blog or newsletter article. 
• In addition to the core and two elective seminars, MAPSS students are required to produce an MA thesis (30–40 pages in length) that explores a foundational question in the formation of knowledge. During this process students will benefit from active support by faculty and instructors.  

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Application Procedure

Students can indicate an interest in the KF/MAPSS Certificate by signing up for our Mailing List. Click here to learn more about the MAPSS Knowledge Formations Certificate and declare your intention for the certificate or email Alisea W. McLeod, Program Manager for Curricular Innovation, at awmcleod@uchicago.edu. 

 

We Place a Premium on Innovation 

The Knowledge Formations Certificate challenges students to creatively employ the tools they have acquired in their core MAPSS Perspectives on Social Science course as well as the core and elective seminars they have taken under Knowledge Formations to refine and reshape the intellectual framework of their research questions. A financial award will be given to the most innovative MAPSS thesis on knowledge formation. 

 

You Should Know! 

• Faculty who teach KNOW Courses, our special designation, represent a wide range of Social Science disciplines and have an interdisciplinary perspective and practice. 

• We are a community that meets regularly to explore fresh ideas and fresh thinking in a non-threatening environment. See Workshops and Slow Thursdays. 

• From the outset of your time at UChicago, you will have assistance from our Program Manager for Curricular Innovation, who holds a Ph.D. in English and Education and well understands multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity.  

• Our KNOW courses offer the rigor you would expect at a world-class university while offering adequate support. 

• We encourage team projects, co-authored essays, and innovative theses. Above all, we love budding research and perspectives! 

 

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APPLY HERE

 

 

 

 

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