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MA in Magic and Occult Sciences

Carrot Flower King said:
Have a link to the relevant page of Exeter's site - https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/courses/arabislamic/magic-occult-science/ - just so folk can actually have a look at entry requirements and course details...
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The entry requirements are English proficiency and a 2:2 Honours degree (which appears to be roughly equivalent to an American Bachelor's degree with a mediocre GPA). The 2:2 also seems to be a minimum standard in the UK, for a warm body capable of gainful employment. (Source.)
 
Props to the first person to put a Hogwarts sign on the front lawn.
 
I love how so much woo these is trying to feed on white guilt via some vague (or outright spelled out) "Pfffft. Not believing in unsupported nonsense is just Western thinking and if you don't accept alternative ways of thinking you're close minded."
 
JoeMorgue said:
I love how so much woo these is trying to feed on white guilt via some vague (or outright spelled out) "Pfffft. Not believing in unsupported nonsense is just Western thinking and if you don't accept alternative ways of thinking you're close minded."
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Well, it's that and the ingrained assumption that wisdom is exotic and therefore has to come from far away and/or long ago. Even though they're just people, too, and have their own reams of nonsense.
 
theprestige said:
That's because you haven't thought it through. Imagine being the professor who has to listen to a student talk about their D&D character for two hours, because it's their master's thesis.
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That's not what I got from the title. Looks to me like an examination of a particular archetype and its use in fantasy literature and gaming. Nothing wrong with studying literary archetypes in a literature course, in my opinion. I mean it's an MA, not an MSc., right?
 
I worked in restaurants with half the waitstaff holding a degree in some art or management skill.
This seems like another option to stay out of the manual labor jobs for a few years after high school.
 
theprestige said:
The entry requirements are English proficiency and a 2:2 Honours degree (which appears to be roughly equivalent to an American Bachelor's degree with a mediocre GPA). The 2:2 also seems to be a minimum standard in the UK, for a warm body capable of gainful employment. (Source.)
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UK degrees...

Honours degrees run (down) from 1st class, to second class, upper divison, i.e. 2 I, to second class, lower division, i.e. 2 II, to third class. Then you have degree without honours.

In my day a 2 II was what you got if you were bright, but spent more time drunk than sober, more time going to see bands than at lectures, turned in the worst dissertation in departmental history, refused to acknowledge the existence of one whole 3rd year course, wrote 3 sentence essays, which did actually answer the ridiculous questions and more...Like I did. In my defence, I did turn in some excellent tutorial essays and a couple of pieces of experimental work which were very good indeed and was the only one who could conduct a crucial bit of analysis on a final year field trip.

In those days you needed a 2 I to get on a Master's or PhD.
 
Carrot Flower King said:
UK degrees...

Honours degrees run (down) from 1st class, to second class, upper divison, i.e. 2 I, to second class, lower division, i.e. 2 II, to third class. Then you have degree without honours.
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Also known as a Geoff (Hurst), an Attilla (the Hun), a Desmond (Tutu) and a Thora (Hird).

;)
 
Carrot Flower King said:
In my day a 2 II was what you got if you were bright, but spent more time drunk than sober, more time going to see bands than at lectures, turned in the worst dissertation in departmental history, refused to acknowledge the existence of one whole 3rd year course, wrote 3 sentence essays, which did actually answer the ridiculous questions and more...Like I did.
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"A good drinking man's degree", to quote a former tutor.
 
theprestige said:
And they're consistent with the hypothesis that this is is about trying to give punters a veneer of academic respectability to their magical thinking practices.

Why do you ask?
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The first appears to be a study of astrology from the late 16th to the end of the 17th century (a period when Galileo, for example, practised it), the second is a study of "Fantasy Fiction and Live Action Role Play". No indication that magic or astrology would be treated as real.

Not so sure about the third one, though.
 
Mojo said:
The first appears to be a study of astrology from the late 16th to the end of the 17th century (a period when Galileo, for example, practised it), the second is a study of "Fantasy Fiction and Live Action Role Play". No indication that magic or astrology would be treated as real.

Not so sure about the third one, though.
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STEMlords are dunking on silly liberal arts courses, get out of here with your pesky facts and details.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I love how so much woo these is trying to feed on white guilt via some vague (or outright spelled out) "Pfffft. Not believing in unsupported nonsense is just Western thinking and if you don't accept alternative ways of thinking you're close minded."
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It's not even new.

Being in the brainy stream at school in the 1960s was just as abhorrent as it is now. Not that such streams are allowed in the 21st century.

8enotto said:
I worked in restaurants with half the waitstaff holding a degree in some art or management skill.
This seems like another option to stay out of the manual labor jobs for a few years after high school.
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The old joke isn't just a joke, but reality.

"What did the science grad say to the arts grad?"

"Two large fries with that, please."

I've been recruiting for over 30 years and it's stunning how little use an arts degree is in the workforce. Recruiting itself is one refuge for BA (Psych) and (Pol Sci) grads, with probably half of all recruiters having one or the other.

Pretty good for government jobs, too, but in the real world, they're despised, and rightly so.
 
My similar go-to joke for disparaging arts degrees is this:

The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with an Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"
 
A guest post about it on Edzard Ernst's blog - https://edzardernst.com/2023/10/the-university-of-exeter-will-offer-a-degree-in-magic

The study of religions and the sociology of the occult are worthy objectives of an academic department, but Emily Selove (an aptronym surely), not only uses hyperbole, but personal predilection to establish that “decolonisation, the exploration of alternative epistemologies, feminism and anti-racism are at the core of this programme.” She ventures even further off piste when declaring “this MA will allow people to re-examine the assumption that the West is the place of rationalism and science, while the rest of the world is a place of magic and superstition.”

Assumptions indeed, which Prof Selove has conjured for herself. Speculative opinion with no evidence whatsoever, and seemingly oblivious of the fact that all reputable Western scholars throughout history have been aware of science’s development in the ‘rest of the world’, albeit slowly. Astronomy, gunpowder, papermaking, the use of zero as a number, Musa al-Khwarizmi’s Al-jabr, every branch of science imaginable. There is no ‘Western science’, just ‘science’. (Latin: scientia, knowledge, understanding.)
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Mojo said:
The first appears to be a study of astrology from the late 16th to the end of the 17th century (a period when Galileo, for example, practised it), the second is a study of "Fantasy Fiction and Live Action Role Play". No indication that magic or astrology would be treated as real.

Not so sure about the third one, though.
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The third one:
Sarah Scaife: (The South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership AHRC funded PhD Researcher):
Research Project: Medicines of uncertainty: in a more-than-human world, how might polyvocal, practice-based performance methods reveal novel ways to articulate and attend to spells of illness?
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If rational, it could be a study of the placebo effect of treatments based on magical thinking.
Definition from Law Insider: "Spell of illness means the total duration of all successive CONFINEMENTS that are separated from each other by less than 60 days."
Does a sugar pill work better if accompanied by incantations? Do incantations shorten spells of illness?
But the use of "in a more-than-human world" instead of in a fantasy world makes me think that it is probably not rational.
 
Remember that cutaway gag in Family Guy, where Peter decided the best way to break bad news was to get a barbershop quartet to sing a "You've got AIDS" song to a patient?

That's exactly what this is: "how might polyvocal, practice-based performance methods reveal novel ways to articulate and attend to spells of illness?" Right?
 
Mojo said:
The first appears to be a study of astrology from the late 16th to the end of the 17th century (a period when Galileo, for example, practised it), the second is a study of "Fantasy Fiction and Live Action Role Play". No indication that magic or astrology would be treated as real.

Not so sure about the third one, though.
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Linked in the OP, the blog of The Centre for Magic and Esotericism at the University of Exeter, which offers this degree, places the course squarely at the intersection of the history of magical thinking practices and the history of science and medicine. One of the two degree tracks offered is based on "primarily performative and practice-based methodologies".

I'm telling you it's woo with a thin veneer of academic respectability glued on the outside. You're looking at the veneer and saying "it looks like respectable academic work to me." I'm saying there's only one way to interpret a Master's Degree in Magic and Occult Sciences, based on primarily performative and practice-based methodologies.

I'm all for practicing astrologers studying the history and practice of astrology. But getting an MA in performative and practice-based astrology doesn't actually legtimize the astrologer's work. It doesn't mean they're a better astrologer. Even though that's what people will think, and that's how the degree will be framed by the astrologer-graduate.
 
theprestige said:
I'm telling you it's woo with a thin veneer of academic respectability glued on the outside. You're looking at the veneer and saying "it looks like respectable academic work to me."
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I'm looking at what you're looking at: the titles of the dissertations.
 
Carrot Flower King said:
Have a link to the relevant page of Exeter's site - https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/courses/arabislamic/magic-occult-science/ - just so folk can actually have a look at entry requirements and course details...
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This does not look to bad:

  • Build interdisciplinary expertise whilst exploring your specific interests within the long and diverse history of esotericism, witchcraft, ritual magic, occult science, and related topics.
  • Join our dynamic postgraduate community benefiting from research-inspired teaching led by a range of top scholars from different fields.
  • Our prestigious Centre for Magic and Esotericism welcomes MA students to monthly meetings and local field trips.
  • Graduate with the skills to and knowledge needed to influence and drive business strategies that make a positive contribution to the environment and society.
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The first bullet point seems quite reasonable. But the last heads off to woo-woo territory. I'll just stick with The Secret (Byrne book)WP.
 
That last point barely applies to anything a student taking the course might learn.

Business isn't driven by magic or or occult forces. The environment, I have no idea beyond the beliefs might cause one to be less damaging.
Society, probably about the same except the human side of things.

It's a flashy sales pitch but related job options after graduation seem elusive. Like those kids getting a diploma in restaurant management (an actual course at Fox Valley Tech) thinking they will be hired to manage a restaurant. They are likely to be hired in a restaurant but not to be manager.
 
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