On Mon, 16 Mar 2020 at 20:08, Publius Scribonius Scholasticus via agora-discussion <agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > I'll weigh in to say that while Aris's thesis isn't a spectacular work > of historical scholarship, e doesn't purport otherwise. I think that > as it is, it should be considered for an A.N.
Personally, my feeling is that it feels more like a short horror story than an academic work, plus a paragraph of exhortation. There is little analysis of, say, the legality of the hypothetical players' actions, or on what specific changes Agora might make to mitigate against such a scenario. So it seems to me to be an artistic, rather than academic, work. In the arts, it's quite normal at the undergraduate level to culminate a program with a performance or exhibition. This can continue into the graduate level, though I'm not sure if that's only in modern non-academic master's programs. Certainly a non-honourary doctorate requires original research. So based on analogy to the world writ large, I'm not sure that we should exclude artistic works from lower degrees. However, I think we should try to be consistent and avoid letting art qualify for a thesis just because it happens to be written; we should be consistent with other forms of art. Would we approve a thesis for a song? For a dramatic performance? Historically, we have awarded Bard for works of poetry. The language of the rules is unclear, but I think the reference to peer review suggests academic work, even though art can definitely be argued to be an aspect of scholarship. I think that a fictional work would also have difficulty being called a thesis, in general. -Alexis
