Many of us have experienced this: You are at a public event or a private party, enjoying the conversation, the food, the drinks, the atmosphere, and suddenly it comes. It's the feared moment; the dreaded question.
"So, what's your Ph.D. research about?"
You wonder, should I answer? Should I ignore the question? Should I run? Will anybody understand, or will everybody think I am stuck in my ivory tower? What other options do I have?
Well, an alternative option to describing the theoretical background, the research methods, the questions, the findings... would be to dance the entire research out. To express it in artistic form.
This is exactly what Anne Goldberg has done. She has submitted her doctoral work to her committee at Quebec University. But she has also recorded a dance aimed at kinetically representing her dissertation results for the world at large, outside of the academy. Her topic, "The Negotiation of Contributions in Public Wikis," is showcased through the dance of Anne Goldberg herself, as well as of other students that she has assembled. In the beginning of the 5-minute video (http://vimeo.com/14399403), two male students with printed T-shirts, casual pants, and bare feet run through a meadow. With a white band, they mark a circle. These are the programmers. Other people, of diverse ages and ethnicities, first come close, then join the circle, and perform inside it. These are the contributors, the fans, the consumers, the public. On the edge of the circle there is a woman, observing with critical eye. This is the researcher - Anne Goldberg.
This is one way in which Anne Goldberg interprets her dissertation work, barring the spoken word. Of course, it would be hard to understand what is happening in the video without a title attached to it, and without a rather lengthy explanation that Anne Goldberg does provide for it. And yet... It seems important to note that Anne Goldberg's endeavor is not singular. Her dance video is one of 45 entries submitted by scholars from various fields for the competition Dance Your Ph.D. John Behannon, a journalist for Science magazine, came up with the idea when he was living in Vienna several years ago. The molecular biologist wanted to prove that, "Secretly, all scientists want to dance, and it makes it easier to understand their research - and it is fun." Maybe he also just wanted to show that research and humor can coexist. The idea has certainly become a success: Today, Science magazine sponsors the competition. Several weeks ago, during the Image Science Film Festival in New York, a jury of scientists, choreographers, and former competition winners decided on this year's best video. It is Maureen McKeague of Carleton University, Canada, with research in chemistry. You can watch the submitted videos at http://gonzolabs.org/dance/.
Of course, this article for the student membership of the International Communication Association has been written with the desire to make people laugh, to make emerging scholars working on their dissertations unburden for just a little while. But this article also has a deeper purpose: to encourage student members of ICA to search for, to seek, to experiment with innovative approaches to scholarship. Don't just take for granted theories and methods - question them, challenge them, invent and reinvent, mix and match. Adapt to cultures, to contexts, to times and spaces, to groups, to subjects. And, most importantly, don't just write for the academic community, your resume, a job, tenure, or promotion. Write for the world community.
