Doing Discourse Analysis II

Full course description

Doing Discourse Analysis II aims to help you to attain sufficient methodological competency to use discourse analysis in your final thesis. Thematically this elective skill invites you to analyse discourses in relation to themes from the elective courses you have followed in period 4 or are following in period 5. In this skills training, you will work on an individual research project on a topic of your choice from one of these courses. Like in Doing Discourse Analysis I, the focus will be on Foucauldian inspired discourse analysis. In Doing Discourse Analysis II, the knowledge of discourse analysis will be deepened and widened. You are introduced to recent additions to discourse analysis - such as the idea of performativity by gender theorist Judith Butler and the conception of discourse coalitions by political scientist Maarten Hajer - and criticisms of the method, making you aware of possible shortcomings and alternatives. You are for instance invited to think critically about the relationship between subject positions that are produced by discourses and everyday lived identities, and whether and how we can create room for thinking about agency.