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Bringing It All Together: The Senior Capstone Experience

If IAS is your prime major, you must participate in a capstone experience sometime during your last two semesters. The capstone experience in IAS is designed to allow students to draw from their varied interdisciplinary IAS coursework and to encourage them to synthesize, compare and consolidate the various approaches and theories they have explored throughout the major. Those IAS prime majors who fulfill their capstone requirement through a thesis or a project will be encouraged to select topics that require this synthesizing process.

If IAS is your joint (or second) major, you must still complete at least one 400 level course as part of your 18 advanced credits requirement.

Requirement Options

The capstone requirement may be satisfied in one of three ways. The choice of which capstone is most appropriate for you should be made in close consultation with your IAS advisor. The three options include:

1. Honors Thesis in IAS

You must confidently expect to graduate with an overall GPA of 3.5 or higher in order to qualify for this option. The IAS Capstone Coordinator, a professor affiliated with the IAS program, familiar with the process of thesis-writing, program policies, and the College’s requirements for honors, should be among your initial contacts as you consider the choice between a senior project in IAS and a thesis. See Senior Honors Thesis for further details. You should enroll in L97 425 Senior Project Seminar (for more details, see below) in order to be properly tracked by the IAS Capstone Coordinator.

2. Senior Project in IAS

A senior project in IAS is essentially an independent research project, done under the supervision of a faculty advisor, of smaller reach than an honors thesis. It consists of a research paper of about 30 pages, produced in a one-semester independent study, usually in the second semester of senior year, and it does not qualify you for honors. You should enroll in L97 425 Senior Project Seminar (for more details, see below) in order to be properly tracked by the IAS Capstone Coordinator.

  • Senior Project Seminar L97 IAS 425 In this course, you undertake supervised research as part of your capstone experience, which may take the form of an honors thesis or a senior project. Seniors who choose to do their capstone experience in IAS enroll in this course in the spring semester. If you are writing an honors thesis, you are encouraged to enroll in at least one independent study course prior to this as well (L97 IAS 400). At the end of the semester, all students enrolled in the Senior Project seminar participate in a poster session in which you present the results of your projects and discuss the implications of your work for future research.

3. Capstone Seminar or specially designated 400 level course

Capstone seminars should be interdisciplinary and/or comparative or transnational, and should draw from different intellectual traditions. These seminars should require at least one major research paper (typically 20 pages minimum). You must petition for approval of this option and make a case for how this course will cap your major (see below for specifics about the petition). You must take this seminar in either of your last two semesters, and you may not retroactively declare a previously taken seminar to have been your capstone.   

The petition process:  before registering for a capstone seminar, you must write an essay of no longer than 400 words addressing the following points: 1) a short description of the course and how the course itself is interdisciplinary, comparative or synthetic; 2) a case for how this course builds on your previous coursework in IAS and can thus serve as a logical summary experience. Possible topics for term papers may also be relevant to this argument. You are urged to consult with your IAS advisor in preparing this statement and should submit this proposal to your advisor for approval. Revisions and clarifications may be requested.

A representative list of recommended 400 level courses includes:

  • IAS 402 The Meaning of National Security in the 21st Century (for all IAS majors) Prof. Wertsch
  • IAS 420 Islam, Immigrants and the Future of European Culture (for IAS majors with a concentration in EuSt) Prof. Graebner
  • IAS 422 Europe, an Imagined Community: Identity Discourses since 1750 in Literature, Thought, Art and Politics (for IAS majors with a concentration in EuSt) Prof. Lutzeler
  • IAS 4370 Global Feminisms (for all IAS majors) Prof. Krook
  • IAS 442 European Intellectual History 1789-1890 (for IAS majors with a concentration in EuSt) Prof. Izenberg
  • IAS 444 European Intellectual History 1930-1990 (for IAS majors with a concentration in EuSt) Prof. Izenberg
  • IAS 452 Immigration, Identity and Technology (for all IAS majors) Prof. Sunita Parikh
  • IAS 457 Gender and Modernity in Latin America (for IAS majors with a concentration in LAS) Prof. Morana
  • IAS 4581 Baseball, Bubblegum and Boom: Latin American Cities Go Pop (for IAS majors with a concentration in LAS) Prof. Pardue
  • IAS 460 Postmodern Narratives in Latin America (for IAS majors with a concentration in LAS) Prof. Morana
  • IAS 461 Latin American Cultural Studies: Critical and Theoretical Approaches (for IAS majors with a concentration in LAS) Profs. Morana, Pardue or Sanchez Prado
  • IAS 462 Latin America and the West (for IAS majors with a concentration in LAS) Prof. Morana
  • IAS 463 Seminar on Urban Cultures in Latin America (for IAS majors with a concentration in LAS) Profs. Pardue or Sanchez Prado
  • IAS 464 Nation and Desire in Latin America (for IAS majors with a concentration in LAS) Prof. Morana
  • IAS 471 Topics in Religious Studies: Religion in Global Context or TRS: Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Women and Religions (for all IAS majors) Profs. Karamustafa or Grant
  • IAS 4731 Global Political Economy (for all IAS majors) Profs. Sobel or Jensen
  • IAS 4792 Globalization and National Politics (for all IAS majors) Prof. Sobel
  • IAS 480 Topics in International Politics: Growth and Development (for all IAS majors) Prof. Sobel
  • IAS 484 Core Seminar in East Asian Studies (for IAS majors with a concentration in EAS) Prof. Watt
  • IAS 489 Topics in Chinese Literature and Culture (for IAS majors with a concentration in EAS) Prof. Chen
  • IAS 4892 Advanced Seminar in History: Latin America and the U.S. in the 20th Century (for IAS majors with a concentration in LAS) TBA
  • IAS 4912 The Nativist Dimension in Modern Japanese Culture (for IAS majors with a concentration in EAS) Prof. Marcus
  • IAS 4917 Advanced Seminar in History: Japan in World War II: History and Memory (for IAS majors with a concentration in EAS) Prof. Watt

NB: We cannot guarantee that all these courses will be offered in any one particular year, but offer them as a list of recommendations. At the discretion of your IAS advisor, you may be able to substitute another 400 level course in your area of study.

Questions

For questions about the senior capstone requirement, consult the Capstone Coordinator.