Language of Defenses

At a recent dissertation defense at the University of Michigan, a colleague and I were musing about the ways the word defense is a misnomer for much of what happens at these events in our Ph.D. program. I’ve been thinking back on this conversation this weekend as I fly back from Sweden, where I was honored to have the opportunity to be the faculty opponent for a thesis defense at Uppsala University.

Now if defense sounds oppositional in nature, what about opponent?

At some level the word defens...