In many ways, the decision to write an online dissertation was never really made - it just materialized from a small and intriguing idea into something inevitable-yet-even-still-uncertain...
In all my writing, I aspire to proceed in a manner congruent with what I am writing about. I tell the graduate students I teach that congruence between method and topic makes a text powerfully persuasive (Oberg 2004)ref.
Writing a dissertation is as much, if not more, a political act as it is a scholarly act (Agar 2005ref).
Stay out in the open like a date palm
lifting its arms. Don't bore mouse holes
in the ground, arguing inside some
doctrinal labyrinth.
That intellectual warp and woof keeps you wrapped
in blindness...Rumiref [1997: 71]
The heart of my work is a heuristic that facilitates the conceptualization of phenomena as open, boundaryless, distributed and evolving - yet still entities; entities with insides and outsides, with characteristics and identities. Conceiving phenomena as sympoieticdef systems is to concieve of them as collectively-producing entities; systems that emerge from complex interactions among diverse components and influences.
[T2] The intent of the heuristic is to enable thinking that relinquishes boundary delineation; that softens identity toward something more maleable: autonomy as interdependence instead of strict or isolated independence. The intent is to facilitate entanglements; to facilitate emphasis/recognition of mutual interdependencies among people, cultures, knowledges, environments... The intent is to facilitate alternative ways of being and interacting; to encourage the creation/recognition of diverse entities in diverse domains that carry sympoietic characteristics and qualities.
[T3] The relevance of these ideas and intentions - and of the heuristic - to this web-presentation is likely quite obvious. As I note on the opening page: "The intent is to create a 'thesis' that supports its own 'thesis'; one that attempts to be the kind of entity and approach it discusses and promotes." While a 'standard' dissertation could discuss theoretical points and examples of sympoiesisdef with exemplary detail, it would fail to illustrate, document or exemplify the conception itself. How to describe and argue for emergence, non-linearity, distributedness, recursivity while being 'comprehensive', linear, centralized and focused? How to encourage no-boundary thinking with a document bound by norms of practice and presentation?
[T4] The quotation from Bernstein at the start of this page identifies a key element of the concern: that the form of the dissertation itself guides thinking. Or, more critically, that it inculcates or represses thinking. Later in the same commentary:
And anyway what is the natural form of scholarly writing? Where do our present standards come from? What values do they propagate? What and who do they exclude? What kinds of teaching and research do they foster, what discourage?
[T5] These thoughts can lead in many directions, many of which are yet to be developed:
- notions of power from a Foucauldian perspective
- rhizomatic authorship
- hypertext vs. linear text
- characteristics of sympoietic systems
I am interested in online dissertations that are more than electronic reproductions of standard formats - hypertext, not pdf documents. While there are more and more of the latter, the former seem harder to find. I struck a small goldmine, thanks to Matt Kirschenbaum, which is out of date (as of 1999), but which led to the following examples:
- Leila Rae 1995+ 101: One Zero One California State University, Hayward, English [M.A. thesis]
- Priscilla Butler 1997+ Across a Day: An Interactive Memoir Emerson College, Boston, Writing, Literature, and Publishing
- Michael Shumate 1996 Writing Lives: Technology, Creativity, and Hypertext Fiction Duke University, Liberal Studies [M.A. thesis]
- Simon Pockley The Flight of Ducks RMIT, Melbourne, Animation & Interactive Multimedia [Ph.D. dissertation]
- Russell J. G. Naughton 1999 Adventures in CyberSound RMIT, Melbourne, Visual Communication [Ph.D. dissertation]
- Contstanze Witt 1997 Barbarians on the Greek Periphery? Origins of Celtic Art University of Virginia, Art History/Archaeology (Ph.D. dissertation)
- Julie K. Rose 1996 The World's Columbian Exposition: Idea, Experience, Aftermath University of Virginia (M.A. thesis) English/American Studies
- Craig Branham 1995+ CON^2 : The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (924-983) as Hypertext [some of M.A. thesis] Saint Louis University, English
- Frank E. Grizzard, Jr. The Construction of the Buildings at the University of Virginia, 1817-1828 still(?) under construction University of Virginia, History [Ph.D. dissertation]
- J. Randolph Radney 1997 Evaluating Philosophical Bases of Linguistic Theories related(?) page University of Texas at Arlingtion, Humanities [Ph.D. dissertation]
[E2] Other online theses:
- check out another goldmine: UNESCO's list of Exemplary Electronic Theses and Dissertations [click "ETD Models"] - which include a few of the above as well as the following
- David M. Orens 1997 an end to the 'other' in landscape architecture: poststructural theory and universal design pdf file, but not quite 'standard' Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Landscape Architecture, Blacksburg, Virginia [M.A. thesis]
[E3] And repositories for the more conventional type of e-theses - or ETDs - include:
- Networked Digital Library of Theses and dissertations
- my own University of Waterloo (which is also listed in the above)
Aside from the basic challenges involved in writing a thesis or dissertation - and the advantages (and disadvantages) offered by hypertext and the online medium - 'success' requires that the dissertation be acceptable to the institution involved. The University of Waterloo (my university) has accepted 'e-theses' since November 1999 - however, 'e' translates as submission of a single postscript or pdf file. It is also possible to submit an "enhanced e-thesis" - which can have additional sound, video or other files, although these 'extras' will not necessarily be archived.
[M2] For me, this presents a bit of a difficulty - and
explains why I used to refer to this work as being 'in support of' my
dissertation, rather than being
the dissertation itself. While I hope the university might accept
something more akin to this format by the time I am finished, one of
the design considerations held in the back of my mind is the ease of
transforming this presentation into a pdf file... At least two
factors influenced my decision to start calling this my dissertation,
rather than work 'in support of' it. One is a sense that I have
reached a point where there is no turning back to a 'printed-on-paper'
dissertation. Second, and meshing with the first, is realization
that its hypertextual nature
is signifcant rather than the its online existence. A pdf file
with hyperlinks, while missing some of the features displayed in this
medium, would allow for the third (navigational) dimension.
[M3] One of the key reasons for postscript- or pdf-only is that the University of Waterloo participates in the National Library of Canada's theses project. This began as a microfilming service, with a dual mandate: improving accessability to Canadian theses and archiving. While electronic submissions are accepted, there is continued dependence on microfische; hence the postscript/pdf requirements. Given the potentials presented by electronic media, the National Library has a Theses Advisory Committee looking into the options that exist for fulfilling their mandate in this new environment.
[M4] Digital archiving has enormous potential, but also enormous challenges. I find many advantages in electronic - particularly hypertext and online - media, but given the exponential growth of the Internet and the coincident changes in software capabilities and formats, maintaining a 'workable' web-presentation, let alone archiving them becomes a considerable effort. For example, even within the several years that I have had my own website, I have experienced changes that made features obsolete - or 'workable' in some internet browsers and not others - a continuing problem. While this presentation attempts to be cross-browser (and cross-browser-version) compatible, I cannot control this potential for future browsers/versions. There are a host of possibilities and challenges. In addition to links noted above and elsewhere on this page, relevant information and resources include:
Dissertations must not violate stylistic norms because that might jeopardize our young scholar's future. `Let them be radical in what they say but not in how they say it.' - Such is the pragmatic, and characteristically self-fulfilling, argument that is made. The point here, as in most initiation rites, is to be hazed into submission, to break the spirit, and to justify the past practice of the initiators. Professionalization is the criteria of professional standing but not necessary professional values; nor are our professional writing standards at or near the limits of coherence, perception, edification, scholarship, communication, or meaning. Underneath the mask of career-minded concessions to normalcy is an often repressed epistemological positivism about the representation of ideas. While the philosophical and linguistic justifications for such ideational mimesis - for example the idea that a writing style can be transparent or neutral - have been largely undermined, the practice of ideational mimesis is largely unacknowledged and, as a result, persists unabated.
substantive revisions: 2003.12.22, 2005.05.09
most recent substantive revisions: 2006.01.25
2003 - 2007