Research Methodology

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to research methodology, exploring both theoretical foundations and practical applications. The opening lecture gives an overview of research methods across various disciplines, with a particular emphasis on the arts and cultural studies. Students are first acquainted with qualitative research, distinguishing it from quantitative and other research approaches. The course then examines how methodologies are influenced by, and in turn influence, concepts such as ‘truth’, ‘reality’, ‘belief’, ‘intuition’, ‘causality’, ‘verification’, ‘models of understanding’, ‘cognitive representations’, and ‘abstractions’. Each lecture features concrete examples of research methods, from postmodernist interpretative techniques like ‘deconstruction’ and ‘decentring’, to diverse forms of hermeneutics – including positivist, existential, phenomenological, critical, ethical, and dialogical approaches. Beyond merely describing and explaining these methods, the course also critically assesses their advantages and limitations in relation to the specific characteristics of the research field in question. For instance, what are the strengths and weaknesses of methods aimed at objectively reconstructing the historical context of a work of art? Is psychoanalysis always an appropriate interpretative tool? To what extent does phenomenology contribute to meaningful interpretation?

Lectures:

(1) Research methods: An overview  

Introduction to methodology as a discipline that reflects on the nature, benefits, and limitations of various methods of research: quantitative methods; qualitative methods; mixed methods approaches; specific discipline driven methods; action research.

Patten, M.L. (2007) Understanding Research Methods: An Overview of the Essentials.

Creswell, J. W. (1998). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing among Five Traditions.

Maykut, P. & Morehouse, R. (1994) Beginning Qualitative Research: A Philosophic and Practical Guide.

N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds) (2005) The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research.

Reason, P. & Bradbury, H. (Eds.) (2001) Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice.

(2) Researching in the cultural fields: Different methods for different truths

Retrieving reality or discovering truth in cultural studies? A question of research

method.

Rose, G. (2002) Visual Methodologies.

Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S.  (2007)  The Landscape of Qualitative Research.

Knowles, G. & A. Cole, A. (Eds.) (2008) Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples and Issues.

Anfara, V.A. Jr. & Mertz, N.T. (2006) Theoretical Frameworks in Qualitative Research.

A case study: Interpreting the Western tradition of still-life in the visual arts.

(3) Belief and intuition in research methods

Reflecting on the role and effect of belief and intuition in research methods applied to cultural and art studies.

Moustakas, C. (1994) Phenomenological Research Methods.

Nist, S. L. & Holschuh, J. P. (2005) Practical Applications of the Research on Epistemological Beliefs.(Theory to Practice).

Pust, J. (2000) Intuitions as Evidence (Studies in Philosophy).

Husserl, E. & Welton, D. eds.  (1999) The Essential Husserl: Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology.

A case study: Believing or intuiting the ethical crisis of meaning in contemporary culture?

(4) Establishing and verifying the causality of cultural events: Methodological relevance

How far can we go in understanding cultural events by explaining what causes them? How can we verify whether such an explanatory theory works for such or such a case study?

Willis, J.W. (2007) Foundations of Qualitative Research: Interpretive and Critical Approaches.

Patton, M. (2002) Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods.

Salmon, W. C. (1998) Causality and Explanation.

Groff, R. (2008) Revitalizing Causality: Realism about Causality in Philosophy and

Social Science.

Child, W. (1996) Causality, Interpretation, and the Mind.

A case study: Psychoanalytical interpretation and the unconscious as cause of cultural events or artistic practices.

(5) Models of understanding, cognitive representations and abstractions in art and culture: Methodological relevance

Questioning the relevance and applicability of abstract models of representation when it comes to understanding artistic practices and cultural phenomena.

Stanczak, G. C. (2007) Visual Research Methods: Image, Society, and Representation.

Deleuze, G. (1995) Difference and Repetition.

Deleuze, G. (1990) The Logic of Sense.

Heidegger, M. (1993) Basic Writings.

Franck, R. (2002) The Explanatory Power of Models: Bridging the Gap between Empirical and Theoretical Research in the Social Sciences.

A case study: The relevance of formal categories in Japanese aesthetics.

(6) Deconstructing assumptions and certitudes as a method? Postmodernist attitudes in research

Questioning the relevance of deconstructing models and categories as a research method in cultural and art studies.

Scheurich, J. (1997) Research Method in the Postmodern.

Best, S. & Kellner, D. (1991) Postmodern Theory.

Sarup, M. (1993) An Introductory Guide to Post-structuralism and Postmodernism.

Crome, K. & Williams, J. (2006) The Lyotard Reader and Guide.

A case study: The truth in painting  (1987) by Jacques Derrida.

(7) The his/story of art and de-centering methods

Reflection on ‘postmodern’ research methods in cultural and art studies: Creating the story of art instead of retrieving its history?

D'Alleva, A. (2005) Methods and Theories of Art History.

Benjamin, A. (1991) The Lyotard Reader.

Deleuze, G. (2003) Francis Bacon: The logic of Sensation.

Bryson, N. (1983) Word and Image: French Painting of the Ancien Régime.

A case study: Three approaches from Jean-François Lyotard’s Discours, figure, Gilles Deleuze’s Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation and Norman Bryson’s Word and Image.

(8) Interpretation: An art or a science?

Introduction to hermeneutics applied to cultural and art studies from Schleiermacher on.

Seebohm, T.M. (2005) Hermeneutics. Method and Methodology, New York: Springer

Jasper, D. (2004) A Short Introduction to Hermeneutics.

Bruns, G. L.  (1995) Hermeneutics Ancient and Modern.

Ormiston , G.L. & Schrift, A.D. eds. (1990) The Hermeneutic Tradition: From Ast to Ricoeur.

Vattimo, G. (1991) The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Postmodern culture.

A case study: Cipriani, G. (2000) ‘Hermeneutics and Art’ in Philosophical Enquiry: International Quaterly, Vol XXI, No 1-2, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Greece, pp. 85-101.

(9) Objective and social factors in interpretation: Wilhelm Dilthey and Max Weber

The possibility of understanding the historical and social circumstances of art practices and cultural phenomena

Dilthey, W. (1979) Dilthey: Selected writings. 


Weber, M. (1949) Max Weber on the Methodology of Social Sciences.

Mueller-Vollmer, K. (1988) The Hermeneutics Reader: Texts of the German Tradition from the Enlightenment to the Present.

Panofsky, E. (1983) Meaning in the Visual Arts.

A case study: The relevance of iconology and iconography as methods of  understanding symbols and icons.

(10) Interpretation and the revelation of modes of existence

Introduction to ontological hermeneutics and the origin of the work of art.

Polt, R. F. H. (1999) Heidegger - An Introduction

Heidegger, M. (2008) Being and Time.

Heidegger, M. (2001) ‘The origin of the work of art’ in Poetry, Language, Thought.

Heidegger, M. (1999) Ontology: The Hermeneutics of Facticity.

A case study: Heidegger, painting, and the revelation of Being.

(11) Interpreting the unfamiliar, reflexive understanding, tradition, and the fusion of cultural horizons

Introduction to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics applied to art and culture.

Gadamer, H.-G. (1989) Truth and Method.

Gadamer, H.-G. (1976), Philosophical Hermeneutics.

Davey, N. (2006) Unquiet Understanding: Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics.

J. Dostal, R.J. (2002) The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer.

A case study: The problem of understanding art from different cultural perspectives (e.g. East/West) – The relevance of truth and method.

(12) Interpretation and the social life-world: communication, interaction, and the possibility of social criticisms and transformations

Introduction to Jürgen Habermas’s critical hermeneutics and its relevance to cultural and art studies.

Habermas, J. (1971) Knowledge and Human Interests.

Habermas, J. (1984) Theory of Communicative Action, Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society.

White, S.K. (1995) The Cambridge Companion to Habermas.

Dews, P. (1999) Habermas: A Critical Reader.

Geuss, R. (1981) The Idea of a Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School.

A case study: Understanding art from the perspective of critical theory.

(13) Description and explanation in research: Hermeneutical phenomenology and theory

Interpreting art, from realisms and subjectivisms to hermeneutical phenomenology.

Moustakas, C. (1994) Phenomenological Research Methods.

Moran, D. (2000) Introduction to Phenomenology.

Ricoeur, P. (2007) The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics.

Mey, K. ed. (2005) Art in the Making – Aesthetics, Historicity and Practice.

A case study: Cipriani, G. ‘Art and the paths of interpretation’ in Art in the Making (2005)

(14) Interpreting art and culture through dialogue with ‘otherness’? Dialogical hermeneutics as method of research in distinctio from comparative analysis. Introduction to the philosophies of dialogue and otherness.

Buber, M. (1996) I and  Thou.

Heisig, J.W. (April 2000)
 ‘Non-I and Thou: Nishida, Buber, and the moral consequences of self-actualization’ in Philosophy East and West,
Vol. 50, No. 2 pp. 179-207.

Kopf, G. (2001) Beyond Personal Identity: Dôgen, Nishida, and a Phenomenology of No-self.

Marcel, G. (2002) Creative Fidelity

Bori, P.C. (1994) From Hermeneutics to Ethical Consensus among Cultures.

Case study (1): Understanding Paul Cézanne’s painting through an East/West dialogue.

Case study (2): Rethinking architecture and urbanism through an East/West dialogue.

(15) Method and ethics  

The acceptability of the way the research is conducted, the nature of the outcomes and what they are used for.

Singer, P. (1993) A Companion to Ethics.

O'Neill, W.R. (1994) The Ethics of our Climate: Hermeneutics and Ethical Theory.

Smith, C. (1991) Hermeneutics and Human Finitude: Towards a Theory of Ethical Understanding.     

Sullivan, R.J. (1994) An Introduction to Kant’s Ethics.

Kant, I. (1993) Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals.

Three case studies: art & design; historical research; education.