Doctoral Dissertations as Liminal Journeys of the Self: Betwixt and between in Graduate Sociology Programs

Abstract

The sociology dissertation process is a liminaljourney, a passage characterized by ambiguity, uncertainty, and crisis in which the student self is abandoned and a new professional self claims a world ofpower, authority, maturity, and responsibility. The theoreticalperspectives ofVictor Turner, Arnold Van Gennep, and George H. Mead are extended to conceptualize the liminal self' who undertakes this difficult and problematic journey of transformation. Experiential methodology, in which theory and autobiography are combined, is employed to explicate the dissertation as a conflictful rite de passage and to critique doctoral projects that unreflexively adopt technicalformulas for success and thus deny the possibility ofliminal transformation.