Flock Around and Find Out: Dissertating, Murmurating, and Liberating

• In Event: From Injustice to Inclusion: Advancing Social Justice in Graduate Education: Centering Justice in Graduate Education: Reimagining Mentorship, Community, and Institutional Change

Abstract

Inspired by bell hooks (hooks, 1994), this dialogic inquiry documents seven scholars’ thinking and reflections on dissertations in practice. Our scholarship contributed to the knowledge base in our respective fields by and while embarking on dissertations authentic to us. We rooted in the literature, interrogated issues, collected data, and shared our findings; we just happened to do it through a podcast, song breaks, collaboration, sisterhood, multi-color writing, and non-linear and unique presentations. We didn’t defend ‘alternative’ dissertations; rather, we argue that ours exemplify what dissertations are meant to be. Identifying dissertations as either traditional or alternative ascribes a set of (ab)normative values to both knowledge and the production of knowledge that should be antithetical to dissertations.

Authors

• Tynisha N. Worthy, Youth at the Center

• Courtney Walton, Brwn Place

• Brandelyn L. Tosolt, Northern Kentucky University

• Kayla Ritter Rickels, OneGoal

• Rae Loftis, Eastern Kentucky University

• Ike Hilpp, University of Kentucky

• Josie Evans-Phillips, Independent Scholar