dissertating (!!) is certainly a rite of passage, not least in countries
like Sweden where they are not only published (monographies generally in
some University series) but also defended in public.
But I would like to disagree deeply when you say it is the research that is
valuable scholarship, whereas "writing it up" is ceremonial. It may have
been so for you in physics, but in my own experience from qualitative
micro-level analysis in education writing to a great extent _is_ the
research. I think there is something very Latourean over this process of
textual work: me cyborged into this developing/ /condensing textual mass.
Working on my text that is working on me. So a rite of passage like this,
yes, it leaves a product that perhaps will be mostly a dust collector, but
it certainly also transforms the neophyte quite deeply.
I'm writing this as I come from a meeting with both my supervisors,
discussing among other things two alternative dates in May for my public
defense... there's _only_ some more concentrated work to do first...
Eva
responding as if the first JL post on the topic were the only one...