Re-Imagining Dissertation as Contemporary Art

Re-imagining the dissertation as both a form and method of contemporary art holds transformative potential for creative research. Drawing from currere, traditional scholarship, poetic writing, and artistic practice, I explore how dissertation itself becomes processual; a living experience, rather than a fixed product. Through a deeply personal curriculum journey, I investigate the role of vulnerability as both mode and material, examining how personal history shapes pedagogy shapes artistic voice. I test the power of vulnerability to disrupt academic norms and generate radical transformation in educational spaces. Rather than positioning the dissertation as a fixed product, I frame it as an embodied, evolving process that honors complexity, emotion, imperfection, and imagination. In doing so, I invite educators, researchers, and artists to consider new possibilities for scholarly expression—where making meaning is as vital as making arguments, and where research becomes a work of art in itself.