Disciplining and Managing Doctoral Researchers‘ Time. Performative Effects of Curricula and Their Interaction with Other Time Frames

Writing a dissertation in Germany used to be a highly individualized process. Doctoral candidates turned in their dissertation when they considered it appropriate. In the 19th century, this could simply mean to possess the economic means to pay for the defense and the associated celebration where the doctoral candidate did not even have to be present (promotion in absentia). Earning a doctoral degree was not primarily a question of scientific quality but of economic affordability. However, the more universities assumed a research function in the course of the 19th century the more important doctoral theses became for fulfilling this function. Under the auspices of the scientific community, appropriateness was now defined in terms of content. In the modern research university, doctoral candidates became doctoral researchers who were required to turn in a piece of original research. Thus, writing a dissertation was turned from an economic matter into a time-consuming open-ended endeavor. Yet time was not related to the effort needed to complete the PhD, but to the dissertation itself: The purpose was to “achieve something that will endure” (Max Weber); time figures in only after the dissertation is completed. The large scale introduction of graduate schools in Germany since 2006 has changed this. Writing a dissertation is transformed into an educational program that frames doctoral researchers as students. This has implications for the way PhDs are developed and the way time is operationalized by doctoral students. Science as a calling is now recast as scientific skills to be learned through the curriculum; time is organized through the program and for the student, regardless of the way the dissertation unravels. Time-to-degree becomes a mark of excellence, and the program is designed to make the students to get a move on with their PhD, e.g. through regular courses, progress reports, or supervision. While time-to-degree is rather arbitrarily fixed at three years (the regular duration of PhD scholarships), it unfolds in multiple time frames. Some are related to the school’s aims such as frequent conference presentations, publications, or international mobility (as these too are considered marks of excellence), some are beyond it’s control. The successful enactment of both research and teaching can not be programed (Niklas Luhmann): Interaction in teaching limits the linear acquisition of knowledge, research may not lead to expected results, and it’s originality is in permanent danger of being outrun by others. Doctoral students have to learn to manage their own time, and this learning process is well beyond its formalization through credit points or time management courses. Against the historical background and based on case studies in five graduate schools at German universities, the paper accounts for changes in doctoral education, discusses alternative time frames that may modify, extent, or undermine the tight disciplining put forth by the curriculum, and reconstructs how the imperative to manage one’s time has invaded doctoral students’ self concepts.