I’ve made some experiments in my classes and thesis has been the last one to undergo a radical re-seeing. I’m certainly not done with the revision / re-seeing of what a “class” or a “thesis” is. But I feel like I’m connected more meaningfully to the questions that I brought in with me way back when I did my MFA. I have more technical / theoretical language around the pedagogy, but I’ll save that for another time. I wanted to share the spirit of my work with these writers here. This is the body of a letter I sent in December to the MFA thesis advisees I’m working with right now.
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Every tradition is passed down (‘handed across/over’ in Latin). The recipient of tradition has to decide how they might hand it down when it is their turn — as received or changed, transformed or preserved, etc.
We mostly talk about the thesis as a class within a curriculum, a way to mark your academic and writing career. What if we shifted our idea of the thesis from academic task to sociopoetic practice? more specifically, as something received and then passed down again? or simply a chance to do shit together?
What do you see as being handed down to you? Can you describe it? Do you have a sense of its history and culture? Can you describe this, too? I’d like for you to reflect on the tradition of the thesis. And then ask yourself, what if we don’t just think of the thesis as an academic form but emphasized a specific aspect of it — ritual? Not assignment, but assay. Not correction but direction/vector... insurrection. Not mastery, but mystery.
Every ritual can be identified by some collective desire (across space and/or time). Can you begin to name some collective desire? What comes to mind when you reflect on your own desire for your work and how it intersects with this collective one? What can we do together in practice to mark an entry into our collaboration? What do you want to do to mark the specific entry into your thesis work?
Furthermore, nearly every ritual cares for something. What does this thesis-as-ritual seem to care for? What (whom) would you like your work to care for? What might you want to preserve? What might you change?
If you look ahead to April and May, how might you mark the end of this particular segment of your journey? How might we do this together?