The CSP honours requirement can be fulfilled in either of the two honours subjects (normally the subject in which you have taken more classes, i.e, your primary subject). The honours requirement in CSP is satisfied by writing an honours thesis, which is defended at an oral examination.
If you intend to complete an honours thesis in CSP, you must have your honours application approved by the CSP Director and the Chair of the Dalhousie Department. Honours applications should be submitted online as follows:
- obtain a fillable pdf “Honours Application Form” from the CSP office (sharon.brown@ukings.ca) or from the King’s or Dal Registrar’s office
- fill out the application (include ALL 20 credits required for your degree, including those you are still planning to take)
- forward the form to the Director or Undergraduate Advisor of your primary program – they will sign it and return it to you
- forward the form to the other department for signature – they will sign it and return it to you
- forward the form to the Dal Registrar’s office (registrar@dal.ca)
Once your honours application is approved, please contact the CSP Director, Dr. Dorota Glowacka (glowacka@dal.ca) for permission to register in the non-credit Honours Thesis Seminar (CTMP 0456.00 and CTMP 0457.00). If you want to register in the Honours Thesis Seminar prior to having your form approved by both departments, you should email Dr. Glowacka and request a waiver of this requirement.
Your approved honours application must be submitted to the Registrar’s Office by September 18. please fill out the pdf application form from the CSP and send it to either Dr. Glowacka or to the Dalhousie department advisor for approval.
Honours Thesis Seminar (CTMP 0456.00 and CTMP 0457.00)
Students who are fulfilling their honours requirement in CSP must take the non-credit honours seminar course, which will be offered on line in 2020/2021 and posted on Brightspace at https://dal.brightspace.com/d2l/home/132475. Please note that the second half of seminar, CTMP 0457.00, will be activated in the Winter term and the content migrated. Registered students who later decide not to write the thesis must withdraw from CTMP 0456.00 and CTMP 0457.00 by November 2.
The Seminar will consist of three virtual meetings, conducted by the Director via Zoom (educational licence). They will take place on the following days: September 22, November 3, and February 9.
- September 22, Zoom virtual meeting 11:30 a.m.– 1:00 p.m.
- requirements for fulfilling the honours credit in Contemporary Studies
- general procedures (selecting and working with your supervisor; revisions; thesis defence; procedures for appeal)
- November 3, Zoom virtual meeting 11:30 a.m.– 1:00 p.m.
One-page description of the project and preliminary bibliography due today.- an oral presentation of the proposal and bibliography
- the seminar divided into several small groups (break-out rooms), with two faculty members per group to provide feedback and advice
- February 9, Zoom virtual meeting 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
The first draft of the thesis due today.- Check-in and progress reports.
Description of the Honours Thesis and Deadlines for submission:
The honours thesis is a substantial piece of intellectual work on a subject chosen by the student and agreed to by the supervisor. It can be a serious revision of an essay already submitted in one of your CSP courses. The quality of work is expected to approximate the requirements at the graduate level, and the emphasis will be on original, critical thinking. Interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged.
The minimum length is twenty pages, while thirty pages will be considered long. Students must use both primary and secondary sources, and provide a bibliography, an abstract, and a list of key words.
The final draft of your thesis must be submitted to your supervisor on or before March 1.
The completed thesis must be submitted in hard copy to the CSP office and an electronic copy on Brightspace on or before March 15, 2021.
ALL written work (the proposal, thesis drafts and the final copy of the thesis) should be submitted in the Assignments folder on Brightspace.
Working with the honours thesis supervisor:
Begin with identifying potential supervisors and contacting them by e-mail to determine who might be best suited to work with you on the topic you are interested in (see Appendix 1: a list of CSP faculty available for thesis supervision in 2020/2021 with their areas of expertise and email addresses). Please be advised that particular instructors’ ability to supervise theses is limited; therefore, please prepare a list of three potential supervisors you would like to work with and send it to Sharon Brown no later than September 28. Please keep in mind that CSP part-time instructors can be approached as potential supervisors, and so can the instructors who are on leave in the fall 2020 but will be returning in the winter of 2021. Should you wish to work with a King’s or Dalhousie professor member who is not a member of the CSP teaching staff, arrangements must still be made with a primary supervisor who is a member of the CSP teaching staff and the two will serve as your thesis co-supervisors.
You are required to meet with your supervisor at least twice each term. In the fall term, you should meet with your supervisor at least once between the 1st and 2nd seminar. All meetings with supervisors will be conducted remotely.
Topics must be developed and approved by the supervisor before the meeting on November 3. After that date, individual schedules for producing the work will be established in consultation with the supervisor, although the general deadlines must be observed.
Thesis defence and evaluation:
Theses will be defended at a thirty-minute virtual oral exam the week of March 22-26. During the exam, you will be expected to provide a five-minute summary and then answer questions about the substance and method of your work posed by the examining committee that will consist of the supervisor (co-supervisors) and an external reader. The supervisor will act as the chair of the committee.
The theses will be evaluated according to a pass/fail standard by a committee. During the week of April 5, you will be provided with a written evaluation of the thesis, which will include an unofficial letter mark, agreed upon by the committee.
Every year, a prize is awarded to the highest-ranked thesis.
List of supervisors and their primary interests
Dr. Hamza Karam Ally: nineteenth and twentieth century literature, postcolonial literature and phenomenology.
Email address: hamza.karamally@ukings.ca
Dr. Michael Bennett: continental philosophy, contemporary critical theory, biopolitics, environmental philosophy, history and philosophy of science.
Email address: mjbennet@dal.ca
Dr. Stephen Boos: German Idealism, Nietzsche, phenomenology, existentialism, Foucault, Frankfurt School and aesthetics, environmental ethics and aesthetics, animal studies.
Email address: stephen.boos@ukings.ca
Dr. Daniel Brandes: contemporary Jewish thought, phenomenology, existentialism, modernism, Arendt, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Agamben.
Email address: daniel.brandes@ukings.ca
Dr. Sarah Clift: social and Political Thought (19th/20th/21st Centuries); Freudian psychoanalysis; memory and trauma Studies (public/collective memory; psychologies of memory; trauma theory; post-holocaust ethics; politics of memory; truth and reconciliation); continental philosophy (aesthetics/ethics/politics); the philosophy of Hannah Arendt; philosophies and politics of recognition.
Email address: sarah.clift@ukings.ca
Dr. Susan Dodd
Email address: susan.dodd@ukings.ca
Dr. Elizabeth Edwards: Psychoanalysis, deconstruction, literature, art, dance, photography, feminism, pain and suffering, David Bowie (pop culture), film.
Email address: elizabeth.edwards@ukings.ca
Dr. Anthony Enns: film studies, media studies, popular culture studies, literary studies, and science and technology studies.
Email address: anthony.enns@dal.ca
Dr. Dorota Glowacka: Holocaust and genocide studies; histories and representations of settler colonial violence in North America (testimony, literature, art; gender and mass atrocity); continental philosophy (Derrida, Levinas, Irigaray, Kofman); gender theory; theories of race.
Email address: glowacka@dal.ca
Dr. Kenneth Kierans: Kant, German Idealism (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel), Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre.
Email address: jkkieran@dal.ca
Dr. Gordon McOuat: science, technology and society; decolonization of knowledge; logic and method; biology and biopolitics; evolution and life; encounters between the East and the West
Email address: gmcouat@dal.ca
Dr. Laura Penny: Benjamin, feminism, mass media, digital culture, Deleuze, affect theory, and popular culture.
Email address: laura.penny@ukings.ca
Dr. Michelle Wilband: history of philosophy; neoplatonism; philosophical theology; feminist philosophy; philosophy of technology; epistemology; marxist theory; ancient history; ancient mythology; ancient pedagogy.
Email address: michelle.wilband@ukings.ca
