Colloquium Rationale and List of Works

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The Rationale

The Rationale should include a discussion of the proposed topics of your Colloquium and some of the central works on your List of Works. For more information about the content of the Rationale, please see the Rationale web page.

The List of Works

In putting together the List of Works, students should think about works that have had a significant impact on their thinking and those that were important to their courses. Most importantly, students should talk to their adviser about works that may be relevant to the topics they plan to discuss in their Colloquium.

Before submitting the List of Works, students should consult the List of Works Guidelines and Suggestions web page for guidelines about how to organize it and indicate which texts fulfill the various requirements.

The list should consist of the kind of texts, art works, objects, music, or other materials students have encountered in their studies. What matters most is that these works be significant for your inquiry. Normally, students should avoid how-to manuals, self-help books, and most textbooks unless they plan to engage critically with these genres.

The list must include works that indicate the student's having considered questions across geographical, historical, cultural, and political perspectives. Works must be drawn from more than one single region of the world.

Consisting of 20 to 25 items, the List of Works is divided into four categories. Please verify that your list includes works from the categories listed below.

1. My list includes four works from the Humanities produced after the mid-1600s, in Humanities fields such as Literature (including works of literature as well as literary criticism), Philosophy, History, the Arts, Critical Theory, and Religion
2. My list includes four works from the Social and/or Natural Sciences that are nonfiction works, produced after the mid-1600s, in the Natural Sciences (such as Biology, Neuroscience, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry or Astronomy) and Social Science disciplines (such as Political Science, Economics, Psychology, Anthropology, and Sociology)
3. My list includes seven works from pre-modern or early modern periods
4. My list includes five works that point specifically to my concerns in my concentration

Some of the selected 20 to 25 works must also directly indicate how the student’s inquiry relates to debates about how knowledge is shaped by place, power and history. In fulfilling these contextualization requirements, students need not exceed the 20-25 works required for the List--indeed, most should not. (Students can consult the List of Works Guidelines and Suggestions to view a Sample List of Works.)

For example, a work in the social science category may serve also as a work that historicizes issues and concerns, or a work from the premodern world can serve as a work that provides access to other geographies or to perspectives from the global south. Similarly, a work that approaches questions from within a cultural context outside that of most other works on the student’s list might also fulfill the historicizing requirement.

• My list includes at least four works that place the colloquium issues or questions in cultural, political and geographical contexts, including perspectives from the global south or from parts of the world outside of the regions in which I am focusing my concentration (mark these works with “CPC”)
• My list includes at least four works that help me explore the colloquium themes and questions from an historical perspective. Thinking historically can mean examining the continuities and discontinuities of the object of study, theme, concept or problem with its earlier and later manifestations in order to help us understand its transformation over time. Taking an historical perspective can also mean examining the object of study in relation to contemporaneous ideas and phenomena in order to help us understand the meaning of the object in relation to its own historical moment (mark these works with “HIS”)

Your List of Works must include works in this category. Please revise and submit the list when it is complete.

Please attach your Rationale and List of Works below as a single document. Make sure your name is included in the title of the document. Please indicate if you are submitting a revised Rationale and / or List of Works. If you need assistance, please email colloquium.gallatin@nyu.edu.

Rationale/List of Works

The Rationale and List of Works must be approved by your adviser. Upon submission of these documents and this online form, an e-mail will be sent to your adviser requesting their approval, which they will provide by following the instructions in the email. The adviser may approve the List of Works and Rationale, or request a review from a "second reader." If the adviser approves, the student may schedule the Colloquium immediately. If the adviser requests a second reader review, the student must wait for the review before scheduling the Colloquium. The second reader may simply approve the rationale without other comment, but when revisions are required, the second reader will give written guidance on where and how improvements could be made. In either case, if the Rationale was submitted on time, the student will be notified by e-mail approximately 3-4 weeks after the initial submission. If revisions are required, you should discuss the reviewer’s comments with your adviser, revise the Rationale and/or List of Works, and resubmit the Rationale and List of Works for final approval. Your revised Rationale and List of Works must be submitted no less than four weeks before your scheduled colloquium.
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The Committee

The Colloquium committee will include your primary faculty adviser and one other faculty member. Remember that at least one of your Colloquium committee members must be a member of Gallatin's full-time faculty. Note that you will submit a separate Colloquium Registration form to finalize your Colloquium committee. If you know who you intend to ask to serve as the second committee member, list their name below.

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