Young scholars tend to have fresh ideas and to work at the cutting edge of research problems and paradigms. Being able to respond to them and to guide them means that you have to do better than run in place. Doctoral students spend six to seven years at the University and become part of a faculty member's life as a result. Rudolph will be on research leave in India during the upcoming academic year, so he has worked with a group of graduate students eager to complete, defend and propose Ph.D. topics before he leaves. Those defending over the Spring and Summer Quarters include students with topics such as modernist national identity and its demise in Turkey, stalled transition to democracy in Algeria, contesting economic discourses in Algeria, county government in China, the 'salary man' in Japanese society and politics, state formation in Bulgaria and the violence in British imperial wars of the 19th century.
Proposals also are broad in their reach.