Hello, I was at your session on Weds in Lancaster. I have a few comments to make. Apologies if these are stupid questions or comments… i really liked your study and reseach question.

1. your talk on liminality reminded me of a podcast on Hegelian dialectic http://philosophybites.com/2010/04/robert-stern-on-hegel-on-dialectic.html especially the bit about despair of struggling through something…

2. your idea of threshold concepts seems fine for some study, but appears to me that doctoral study is not the typical ‘you need x to understand y and z’, but actually as a doctoral student you are creating the ‘idea’ of y or z, so a threshold to get you there is understandable, but not the same thing.

3. your methods of narrative analysis seems to open the door for ‘rhetorical’ responses, letting the participant tell you in their own words, using their own persuasive techniques (I’m half way through Aristotle’s Rhetoric!). How do you reconcile this with the threshold concepts, given that you are creating the definition in your original work; you are also articulating your own path there… is there an inconsistency you need to consider.

Apologies for this, I am realising more and more that I am a philosophical idealist. All there is is ideas, and all ideas are are articulations of imagination…

Keep up the good work!

Phil