From:Rawlins DAA
To:Storer.Ellsbeth
Subject: Re: Re:On Second Thought
Ms. Storer,
Before you pop the proverbial champagne, let me dispel any cause for celebration with a bracing dose of reality. To start the program now, without the months of preparation afforded to your classmates, will be exceedingly difficult, and accommodations cannot be made. Your admission will be deemed provisional and probationary, with quarterly evaluation of your fitness to proceed. You must immediately familiarize yourself with the Ritual Procedure Manual, as you cannot participate in next week’s Practicum until you’ve passed your safety certification.
But none of those compare to the greatest challenge you will face here. The Doctorate of Arcane Arts is directed toward a thesis, and this is not a program that affords funded students years to languish and “explore their interests.” I instructed your peers who applied through the proper channels to begin sending me their ideas over the summer, since the criteria are so stringent, and the process of homing in on a topic invariably requires extensive dialogue. So in this important area, you are already months behind. You need to propose anovelarena of study, the investigation of which will meaningfully contribute to the arcane corpus. Yet the scope of your scholarship must be narrow enough to investigate and analyze during your time here.
Moreover, I cannot hold your hand through the process. When I studied under Dr. Lennox, she gave me an analogy that I have embraced: An adviser is a student’sopponentmore than her ally. I will challenge your ideas, damage your confidence, and reject your proposals when they do not meet the most rigorous academic criteria. (Come to think of it, I suspect you may have steered clear of seeking out Lennox as an adviser due to her reputation for toughness, but I can assure you that you’ll find my own standards every bit as exacting.)
You are already months behind your peers. Mr. Hamada, forexample, has an entire distinguished medical career that led him to his topic on the potentially detrimental longevity effects of transmutation rituals. Ms. Josten has already been through seven iterations of her proposed topic, homing in on a particular subset of conjuration rituals for which practical applications have not been discovered, knowing full well she may merely be closing the door on them forever.
Your thesis will not be a book that will make your name. I sense in you a capacity for self-dramatizing grandiosity that I wish to nip in the bud. We begin our careers in arcane mechanicals as humble cultivators of knowledge, and most end that way as well.
I do not intend to be discouraging, only to emphatically communicate the challenges you face. So bring me a topic. Do so quickly. Make it interesting. Focus its scope. And perhaps, with an appropriate dose ofpaenitere,we may yet sculpt you into a scholar.
Cordially,
T. M. Rawlins, DAA
From:Storer.Ellsbeth
To:Rawlins DAA
Subject: Re: Re: Re:On Second Thought
Dear Professor Rawlins,
Yes. Absolutely. Of course. I do not underestimate the difficulty of the program, and I am confident the probationary nature of my admission will not be a problem.
With regard to my thesis, this is actually a matter to which I have already given a considerable amount of thought. I have several ideas for topics that I know would be perfectly adequate, the types of projects that Dean Lennox and the university would approve without a second glance. For example: “Using Augury as a Tool for Understanding Decreasing Rainfall in the Western United States.” Gathering data would be simple enough, the runework is more or less accessible in the archives, and if I tied the subject to a broader social issue (climate change, human interference with the weather), I know I could give the subject just enough polish to make it publishable in a reputable journal before it would be quickly forgotten in the continuously flowing stream of myopic academia.
A project like that would be (forgive me) easy. It would allow me to graduate perfectly on schedule and would allow you to not need to afford me any additional attention.
But adequacy doesn’t interest me. I have a thesis idea that I recognize is slightly controversial, but one that I feel is far more worthwhile than the typical theses that I feel (as perhaps you also do) are emblematic of the “Ivory Tower relic” mentality. Detached from the real world, knowledge for the sake of self-congratulations, bloodless and dispassionate.
The idea that I’m actually interested in pursuing is writ magic.
Of course, my work would beentirely theoretical.Since the statute was passed in 1949, there has been almost no new literature on writ magic, even in an academic context. In fact, by my estimation, the most recent fully published book about the subject is Cavendish-Grey’s pamphlet from 1909. Again, I want toassure you (as you will no doubt need to assure the rest of the thesis committee if you accept my proposal) that I intend to explore writ magic from anacademic perspective only.But we are academics! And the statute (instituted for more than worthy reasons, of course) should not be an entirely paralyzing force on the pursuit of knowledge.
(I am, let’s say, slightly embarrassed about proposing such a…controversial topic when you’ve already granted me the tremendous indulgence of joining the program at all, but not embarrassed enough not to want to focus on the area that truly interests me. An area in which, forgive me, based on your own academic history, I think you’ll be uniquely suited to mentoring me. Because though Cavendish-Grey might be the last time someone published a full book on writ magic, I did come across a few-decades-old journal article from a certain familiar name.TheNew England Journal of Mechanicalsdoes not include author photos, heartbreakingly, so now I will never know if you had an “unfortunate undergraduate facial hair” phase.)
I have a few thoughts on the proper scope and way to approach the topic that I think would be best to discuss in person. You mentioned you live on Partridge Hill? Do you know The Frayed Page? It’s a used bookstore and café on Providence Street with below-average fiction offerings but above-average lemon muffins. Are you free anytime to meet there to chat?
Best,
Ellsbeth
P.S. Surely now, you can address your emails to me as “Ellsbeth”?
From:Rawlins DAA
To:Storer.Ellsbeth
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re:On Second Thought
