Doktorature

Doktorature is a neologism used in literary and cultural studies to denote a body of writing that engages with doctoral study, the production of knowledge in higher education, and the figure of the scholar within literature. The term can refer to two related strands: works of fiction or non-fiction that depict the experience of doctoral candidates, supervisors, and the academic milieu; and critical writing that treats dissertations and related epistemic practices as objects of literary or theoretical analysis. In practice, doktorature is often used to explore themes such as authority, expertise, pedagogy, gatekeeping, intellectual humility, and the social life of academia.

The origin of the term is informal and not standardized; it appears in some German-speaking and Anglophone scholarly discussions since the late 20th century, with variations in meaning and emphasis. Some writers use it to foreground the instability and politics of knowledge production, while others employ it to frame literary texts that stage the doctorate as a narrative or social event.

Examples of doktorature include novels and memoirs that center on doctoral journeys, essays that examine the dissertation as a form, and theoretical articles that analyze the rhetoric and ethics of scholarly writing. Critics sometimes debate whether the label clarifies or flattens complex texts, arguing that it risks equating diverse genres and experiences under a single category.

See also: Doctoral studies, academia, knowledge production, literary theory, literature and science.