Thesis Statement

For Deb….Long may she reign!

Last night I had dinner with a couple of German academics. No, I was not forced. I was, however, relieved: it was one of the few evenings I have spent with intellectuals where they did not try to eat me. One of the academics studies the cultural implications of public service announcements in the Weimar Republic, and the other the cultural implications of keyboard music in Restoration England. Together, they explore the cultural implications of their relationship, which last night meant groping each other under the table.

I love how academics find an obscure atoll of expertise and seize it. Like modern-day conquistadores, they plant their flag on the shores of knowledge and shout to all and sundry in the full refulgence of their superior intellect: “Now know this: I hereby claim post-colonial feminist readings of Milton in perpetuity.” I would tell them that nobody’s listening, but that would be rude.

Like most people, have listened to academics on occasion – sometimes out of politeness, sometimes because I paid for the privilege, but mostly it was in the absence of an accessible fire escape. I have heard highly developed minds expound on a wide variety of subjects, none of which I remember presently. What I do know is that I have never heard an academic discus his or her thesis. By this I mean that I have never heard an academic actually tell me what their thesis was about. I find this peculiar, as one’s thesis usually has to with 1) oneself or 2), one’s field, and I have rarely met an academic who shies away from discussing either. Don’t get me wrong - they talk about their theses all the time, but the discourse is usually couched in phrases like “when I wrote my thesis I took lithium” or “my thesis destroyed my marriage” or the perennial favorite - “My thesis adviser is a cross between Machiavelli and Hitler”.

All of this makes me wonder if academic studies are not really the pursuit of higher learning for the general advancement of society, but rather some form of self-inflicted torture. Of course, there are many academics who do not consider the completion of a doctorate to resemble the trials of the damned, but they are usually straight men or scientists - and who cares about them? In truth, I think many academics don’t talk about their theses (rhymes with…) because they are traumatized by the experience of writing them. In fact, when I was young, I actually thought that The Thesis was some form of disease - like The Flu or, The Plague. You see, my mother decided to move to a remote Aboriginal community in northern Manitoba, have two children and then compose a 1000 page treatise exploring the relationship between cubist art and modernist literature.

We are still asking each other why.

In my experience, The Thesis has recognizable symptoms: long periods spent at a desk followed by a curious kind of mania which results in an exquisitely clean house and experiments in Indonesian cooking…tears… The Thesis skews logic: Many evenings - before going out - my mother would calmly inform the babysitter that if there were a fire….that if there were a fire, the first priority would be to save the green bag that contained her research. The second priority would be to see to the children. I wondered what could possibly cause my own mother to value the welfare of a sack of papers above my own. Then I remembered: The Thesis. In the still small voice of a child, I prayed to a benevolent God: “Please, deliver us from The Thesis…let us know peace once more.”

My prayers were soon answered. One day, after working for a year without a single day off, my mother emerged from her makeshift basement office ringed by a halo of cigarette smoke. I would say she looked like a prophet, but I have the feeling that my mother would be offended by a description based in androcentric patriarchal hegemony. On the other hand, she might see the use of the word prophet as a reclamation of sorts. It is hard to tell . It would also be apt to say that she resembled Joan Baez on Quaaludes.

In any event, I knew something special was happening because I was allowed to have any toy I wanted at Woolco. Even better, I got to ride in the shopping cart as mom danced with it in the aisles- humming along with the muzak and emitting a strange form of guttural laughter.

It was at that moment I knew we were free.

Our freedom was short lived, however. A few months later, mom decided to enter Academia. For those of you who don’t know, Academia is a network of institutions designed for people whose theses have gone into remission, only to come back a few months later in a more virulent strain….but that’s another story.

Postscript:

I still remember the day The Thesis arrived at the cottage. It was a pleasant summer afternoon, and we were sitting on the patio – drinking. The Thesis was stunning - bound in a deep hunter green with gold writing. Being a scholarly work, it was suitably heavy – but it also had an elegant slimness which I still find appealing. In fact, I think The Thesis would look lovely in a wood-paneled library with a fireplace and overstuffed club chairs. Mom’s friend Nancy picked up a copy and slurred

“Debbie, what the hell is this about?”

My mom started laughing and replied

“Nancy, I have no fucking idea”.