Do you think that this notion of "theoretical framework" may have also
changed over recent years in some academic disciplines too because of
a weakening job market for doctorates especially in the humanities
(i.e. history, english, rhetoric etc) among others.
as fields such as librarianship see dramatic influx from other
disciplines where the job market is worse hence impacting LIS own
theoretical framework to the point where one can almost no longer at
times find it anymore.

How is the job market for PhDs in Rhetoric/Philosophy/Classics etc  ?
as well as most Humanities today?  I think these differences in
framework also reflect the weakening job market in other disciplines
also impacting LIS doctoral studies.  This can be a good thing but it
can also be a bad thing for LIS education especially at the doctoral
level in terms of "outcomes" and "process".
  just some thoughts,
--Karen Weaver

On 4/8/11, David E. Beard <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I am not a library science faculty member, though my wife is pursuing
> such a degree.  The context in which she is pursuing it is
> idiosyncratic and troubled, in many ways, and this question is part of
> that troubling, and so I have reflected on it.
>
> The notion of a "theoretical framework" as discussed in this thread is
> a common one in doctoral study, but it is not a universal one.  It is
> a historical term, located in a particular context and a particular
> set of communities;  it points to a particular trajectory of
> humanistic research in the last 40 years.  The "rise of theory" is
> sometimes seen as a response to a certain scientism and/or formalism:
> the "rise of theory" [meaning the works of Foucault, Barthes,
> Kristeva;  the semioticians, the deconstructivists, the Marxists, the
> phenomenologists, the feminists] in literary and cultural studies was
> a corrective to excesses of New Criticism, on the one hand, and
> appeals to a scientism [a science of literature or of culture] on the
> other hand.
>
> "The sense of objective recognition of knowledge and experience, as
> well as the internal-external relationship (the dualism of appearance
> verses reality), was questioned by the rising tide of theory in the
> 1950s and 1960s, conditioned by the growth of a view that everything
> is relative and constructed. Theory became necessary in this context
> to interpret and produce meaning. As meaning was held in the
> relationships between things, as well as the subjective response, this
> meaning was not static, but ever changing and shifting. Theory became
> the path to reveal meaning where absolute truth was not possible"
> (Plowright).
>
> To be clear, our sense of the use of theory has developed beyond this
> initial exigence:  "What if theory isn't about uncovering metaphysical
> meaning at all, but instead is an act of mediation “between old ways
> of speaking, developed to accomplish earlier tasks, with new ways of
> speaking, developed in response to new demands”14? Or theory as an act
> of critical inquiry to deepen knowledge within the syntax of a
> discipline?" --Plowright, "The Poverty of Contemporary Theory in
> Architecture"
>
> But the fact remains:  not all disciplines made this "turn to theory,"
> and among those that did, the turn is transformed as it moves from
> context to context.  There are scholars in communication who would not
> imagine articulating their theoretical framework, and if they were
> forced to do so in a way that would satisfy the colleagues that value
> "theoretical frameworks," they would find the exercise an unhelpful
> dialogue in philosophizing that gets in the way, rather than
> undergirds, empirical research (hello, Michigan State!).  There are
> historians who are uninterested in questions of the theoretical frames
> for their historiographical work, but instead in digging in, up to
> their elbows, into historical work.  There are architects who who are
> uninterested in theoretical frames and yet produce magnificent spaces,
> about which architectural critics produce theoretically informed
> treatises.
>
> LIS is a hybrid field;  it has been one for some time.  I have seen
> LIS researchers present ham-fisted appropriations of Wittgenstein in a
> painful attempt to give a theoretical frame for a research project
> that did not require one, functionally, or at least did not require
> that particular misreading of W.  Theory-anxiety does not necessarily
> improve the work of the field.
>
> What I want to be sure to correct, in this thread, is the
> unintentional naturalization or reification of theory as a defining
> characteristic of doctoral study.  It is not a natural component of
> doctoral study in every field, nor would I expect it to have been a
> component of the doctoral training of every LIS faculty member, given
> the diverse backgrounds and structures of LIS graduate programs.  Nor
> is it a necessary component of quality, peer-reviewed research in
> every field;  the same complications in the interdisciplinary nature
> of LIS apply.
>
> I do believe that the bulk of LIS programs have adopted this
> historical term, with its historical, contextually grounded meaning,
> as a transhistorical value for evaluating their current work.  And as
> a result, I think we get quality work by folks like Hope Olsen and
> Greg Downey.  I also think it explains the ascendance of theoretically
> informed and sophisticated works by Buckland and the resurgence in
> interest in Briet.  The embrace of theory has worked to place LIS in
> conversation with the other Humanities fields in the contemporary
> university.  And personally, the rise of theory in LIS is what makes
> me able to connect LIS to my own field.
>
> But there was a time before Theory.  In the time of theory, there is
> solid intellectual work done without overt attention to the questions
> of Theory.  And no doubt, there will be a time After Theory.  The
> choice to make theory-work essential to doctoral study is a good one,
> one that advances your field within a certain context, but it creates
> some challenges and opportunities in articulating what that means to
> the diversity of students and junior faculty active in LIS RESEARCH.
> We (you) cannot treat this position, this collective disciplinary
> decision, as "natural" or "the way it oughtta be."  Rather, it is the
> condition we construct as we teach, as we deliver papers, as we peer
> review journal articles.  It requires effort and commitment to enact.

> --
>
> David Beard
> Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Scientific and Technical Communication
> Graduate Faculty in English, UMD
> Graduate Faculty in Literacy and Rhetorical Studies, UMTC
> Department of Writing Studies, University of Minnesota -- Duluth
> Humanities 420, UMD, Duluth, MN 55812
> 218-726-8442 / [log in to unmask]
> http://www.google.com/profiles/rhetoricguy
> http://davidbeard.efoliomn.com/
>
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karen Weaver, MLS, Electronic Resources Statistician, Duquesne
University, Gumberg Library, Pittsburgh PA email: [log in to unmask] /
Gmail: [log in to unmask]