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January 18, 2006
Theorizing Practices of PhD studenthood
Part of yesterday's productive meeting focused on the differences between master's work and PhD work - a difference that seems to really show up at the comprehensive exam level (there is much to debate here, I realize, so let us say this distinction was particular to English and Comp/Rhet in our discussion). I'll return to the specifics, but to begin, it is connected to the difference between the consumption of knowledge and the production of knowledge.
Rewind to August, to the CCR Community Day that is the traditional kick-off of the year for our program, the one time in the year that all CCR students and faculty in all phases of work come together for a day of learning and socializing as a community. In one of the panels, Louise Wetherbee-Phelps talked about the nature of PhD work, of the nature of becoming an academic, a scholar, a producer of knowledge rather than a consumer of it. What I wrote was:
becoming a scholar is shifting from being a consumer (reader) and to being an inquirer (of a question to which you do not already know the answer) and a writer (offering new understanding or view or knowledge).
Sounds simple, until I try to actually do it. I'm a reader. I've always been a reader. I consume texts, often uncritically, and sometimes repeatedly. There is so much still out there to read and learn that I am continually looking outward for new material.
Problem? As an academic-in-training, a scholar-in-development, I am past that luxury. I have to read differently. And for the first time, I think I actually understand what that means and how to do it.
Rewind to October 2002. A comment on an early (bad) attempt at applying "critical theory" in an English class. Instructor's comment: rather than trying to show how the text exemplifies (or not) the theory, consider both the text and the theory as part of a larger system and theorize about that. My response at the time: Huh?
My response now: This is starting to sound familiar (read: repetitive). Yesterday, in the productive meeting (I should cap those words), it translated like this: take this text and lay it alongside that text or this other text and find what's interesting about that pairing, what larger claims can you make about those texts?
Now, why it suddenly makes sense to me, I don't really know. But while it does, for at least this brief moment, I'm trying to capture it and get it inside so I can "do" something with it.
Another tip: reading at this level (i.e., as in preparation for exams) means knowing more than just who said what and having a nice set of quotes to demonstrate having read it. It means knowing who said what, and from what position, and in response to which other whos and who aligns with whom and how opposes whom and how the larger conversation fits together SO THAT I, the scholar, can take a place in that conversation, take a stand and make claims of my own that respond to, align with, or oppose the whos already there.
The interesting part about this last point is that I was the one who said it.
I might actually be ready to do this thing.
Posted by cageyer at January 18, 2006 12:47 PM