The PhD thesis as 'text': a post-structuralist encounter with the limits of discourse
| dc.contributor.author | Bletsas, A. | |
| dc.date.issued | 2011 | |
| dc.description.abstract | In a humorous fictional exchange between a PhD student and an established professor of Actor-Network Theory, Bruno Latour provocatively asserts that a PhD thesis is a text and that, like all texts, it is finished when it is completed (148). There are multiple ways in which the PhD thesis can be understood as a 'completed text'. Applying a post-structuralist analysis, this paper addresses the idea of the PhD as a completed text in a political sense: as a text bound by discursive rules, limits, and conventions. It argues that, as a text, the PhD thesis has a specific and limited purpose which always escapes the content (context) of its narrative and arguments. More precisely, the paper draws out the implications of understanding the PhD as a completed text for those who apply a post-structuralist ethic in their analyses, arguing that an implicit tension arises in treating the PhD thesis as itself being a discursive practice: an aspect of the system of power/knowledge. Engaging with this tension, the paper reflects on the way that the PhD thesis has a subjectification effect, arguing that the PhD thesis, as a 'completed text',' can be read as the site through which the student emerges as discoursing subject. | |
| dc.description.statementofresponsibility | Angelique Bletsas | |
| dc.identifier.citation | New Scholar, 2011; 1(1):8-22 | |
| dc.identifier.issn | 1839-5333 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/2440/71970 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | ASAL | |
| dc.rights | Copyright status unknown | |
| dc.source.uri | http://www.newscholar.org.au/index.php/ns/article/view/2 | |
| dc.title | The PhD thesis as 'text': a post-structuralist encounter with the limits of discourse | |
| dc.type | Journal article | |
| pubs.publication-status | Published |