hazy and uncharted.
(Gale, Speedy and Wyatt: 2010, forthcoming)
In many respects what Jane writes here severely understates the importance of her role in
contributing to this dissertation, both in terms of its process and its product. Whilst so many aspects of this collaborative work deconstruct and challenge the traditional academic conception of the dissertation it is not an over-statement to say that it would not have been possible, certainly not in the successfully completed form that it now takes, without Jane’s role. Paradoxically, in many ways Jane’s work supports the traditional conception of the supervisor’s role, in terms of unflinching and continuous academic and pastoral support, sustained intellectual rigour and a willingness to work with the ideas that we were putting forward in a continually supportive but always challenging kind of way.
Coda
On the 25th June 2008 Ken Gale and Jonathan Wyatt successfully defended their Joint Dissertation,
Between the Two: A Nomadic Inquiry into Collaborative Writing and Subjectivityat aviva voce at the University of Bristol. The Examiners made no recommendations for change in passing the work.
At the 5th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry at the University of Illinois Ken Gale and Jonathan Wyatt received an Honourable Mention (Experimental) at the 2009 Illinois Distinguished Qualitative Dissertation Award for Between the Two: A Nomadic Inquiry into Collaborative Writing and Subjectivity.
In March 2009 Ken Gale and Jonathan Wyatt submitted a book proposal entitled Between the Two: A Nomadic Inquiry into Collaborative Writing and Subjectivityto Cambridge Scholars; the proposal was accepted and the book is due for publication in the early part of 2010.
Author details
Ken Gale is a Lecturer in Education working in the Faculty of Education at the University of Plymouth. He has written and currently teaches modules on the International Masters Programme on the philosophy of education, discourse theory, narrative inquiry, gender studies and higher education in further education contexts. His particular research interests focus upon collaborative and performative writing as methods of inquiry and how these might be applied to subjectivity, friendship, gender, and education studies and professional development. He is currently engaged in collaborative writing research projects with colleagues in the UK, USA and
Australia. He has published papers on the theory and practice of collaborative and performative writing, creativity, educational management, online learning and triadic assessment.
References
Braidotti, R. (1994) Nomadic Subjects.New York Columbia University Press
Ellis, C. (2004). The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA, AltaMira Press: USA
Deleuze, G. (2004a): The Logic of Sense. London Continuum
Deleuze, G. (2004b) Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation.
London Continuum
Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1988) A Thousand Plateaus.
London Athlone
Deleuze, G. and Parnet, C. (2002) dialogues I.IContinuum London
Gale, K. J. and Wyatt, J. G. (2006) An Inquiry into Writing: An Interactive Interview, Qualitative Inquiry 12 6: 1117- 1134
Gale, K. & Wyatt, J. (2007). Writing the incalculable: A second interactive inquiry, Qualitative Inquiry, 13 (6), 787- 807
Gale, K. & Wyatt, J. (2010 forthcoming). Between the Two: A Nomadic Inquiry into Collaborative Writing and Subjectivity.
Cambridge Scholars Press
Gale, K., Speedy, J. and Wyatt, J. (2010) Gatecrashing the Oasis: A (Joint) Dissertation Story Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 16, No.1 (forthcoming)
Massumi, B. (1988) translator’s foreword Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. A Thousand PlateausLondon Athlone. Pelias, R. (2004)A Methodology of the Heart: Evoking Academic and Daily Life. Walnut Creek, CA, AltaMira Press: USA
Richardson, L. (2000) Writing: A Method of Inquiry in Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. Handbook of Qualitative Inquiry (2nd Edition)London Sage pp. 923 – 948
St.Pierre, E. A. (1997) Circling the Text: Nomadic Writing Practices in Qualitative Inquiry Vol. 3, No., pp.403-417
My professional role – my academic day job, epistemologically and conceptually far removed from the arena of my doctoral work – often leads me to ask colleagues to identify and articulate the central pedagogic ‘problem’ or issue with which their work is concerned. In attempting to answer the same question of my PhD work and my approach to it, I have found that the notion of integrity – in fact, a tripartite construction consisting of the academic, professional and personal as inextricably linked – to be crucial to understanding my own identity formation and the implications of that.
I was, a few months ago, afforded the luxury of a safe place (metaphorically and physically) to discuss candidly and explore, in an invigoratingly freeform way, my personal experience of ‘doing’ a part-time PhD and these unformed and meandering reflections flow from that. Without that opportunity, I am not sure that I would have found the time to untangle my
thoughts and experience around how it has been for me to ‘do’ my PhD (which has been transferred between a number of institutions for various reasons, and which has remained a research degree, always at a Russell Group institution).
When I first registered as a part-time doctoral student, the impulse derived mostly from my passion for the subject (for passion read love but also frustration), the fact that I had the brain power to do it, the desire to do a really good job of it, and the idea that it would be essential for the kind of academic path that I felt I wanted to pursue in life. This all made perfect sense and I felt that I had chosen the ideal supervisor – a scholar well known to me and
someone I respected and trusted greatly (as is still the case). He got a readership to an institution that didn’t offer part-time doctorates in the discipline – a great achievement for him but a real spanner in the works for me – and not so long afterwards began a string of