[-empyre-] Research in Practice, week two, January 14-20

[Gabriela VargasCetina]

I've seen some of these PhD Dissertation defenses online, and I find the 
whole procedure very stimulating: you have to think on your feet!  My 
own PhD dissertation in Canada was a bit like this, since at McGill the 
Dissertation Defense Committee used to be formed by specialists in 
several fields, who actually asked you to modify your Dissertation to 
reflect recent developments in all fields (I had to change mine, in 
anthropology, to include recent works in political sciences, geography 
and economics).  Just last year, a friend of ours sent us the link to 
her daughter's PhD defense in biological engineering and it was 
fascinating to see how the 'opponent' criticized several key points in 
her work, and she had to respond on the spot, more or less like I did at 
McGill.  The difference, to me, was that there were only two 
'contendants' in the Netherlands, while I had four 'contendants' 
interrogating the main points, but the ones in the Netherlands were more 
oppositional, saying that the PhD candidate had MISSED a lot of data and 
had not offered other, alternative interpretations, while mine were 
ASKING why I reached the conclusions I did, and how it would look from 
all those different angles.  It is a question of form, but I would have 
probably been more nervous with the Scandinavian format.

Gabriela Vargas-Cetina
Facultad de Ciencias Antropologicas
Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan



On 1/15/13 12:52 PM, t.memmott at underacademy.org wrote:
> NOT the newly annointed Doctor, hopefully! :)
>
>
> On Tue Jan 15 17:39 , Simon Biggs  sent:
>
>> who buys the drinks?
>> A
>> Sent from a mobile device, thus the brevity.
>>
>> Simon Biggs
>> simon at littlepig.org.uk
>> s.biggs at ed.ac.uk
>> http://www.littlepig.org.uk
>>
>> On 15 Jan 2013, at 17:07, "t.memmott at underacademy.org" t.memmott at underacademy.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> In Sweden the dissertation defense is setup where you defend your dissertation directly with an opponent, usually a senior
>> scholar in the field of study. This usually lasts between 2-5 hours. Then the discussion is open to the grading committee,
>> followed by questions from "the public" (meaning anyone in attendance).
>>
>> It is a rigorous full day event.... once the defense is over you sit around and wait for the committee to come back with their
>> decision.  Thankfully, this is usually followed by a stiff drink, or three....
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue Jan 15 10:13 , Maria Damon  sent:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>    Talan:
>>>
>>>    What is a dissertation "opponent"? That is a role that has not been
>>>    part of my experience in the States, either as a PhD candidate or as
>>>    a professor in a doctoral degree-granting program.
>>>
>>>    bests, md
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> )
>
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-- 
Gabriela Vargas-Cetina
Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas
Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán
Carretera a Tizimín km 1
Mérida, Yucatán 97305.  México
Tel. +52 999 930 0090