Warring Logics (Book 1 of The Institute of Fantasiological Studies)

“Institute of what? Sorry, could you repeat that?”

“Institute of Fantasological Studies”

I nod as if I think fantasological is a word. I’m pretty sure it isn’t, I’m not certain, but pretty sure.

I spent the week working hard and preparing for this presentation. All of my findings thus far are summarized on the 12 slides and ready to present to Professor Sauer and Tobias on this zoom call. And I am nervous. I have received no real feedback from my supervisor thus far and while Tobias seems relaxed about it, he is always relaxed about it. I even deep cleaned my bedroom so that it appeared spotless in the background.

Professor Sauer opened the meeting by letting me know that he will be less available in the future because he had secured funding to found an institute. He said it as if it was a good thing.

I haven’t received any feedback from him since I arrived at the university.

“It should open up more opportunities to have more Ph.D. students” Sauer smiles on the screen through his three-day beard.

“Great” I mutter. Ugh, more competition for my supervisor’s time. Maybe I’ll see him next when I have my Ph.D. defense? I take a sip of my peppermint tea in my favorite yellow mug.

“Anyways” I see Sauers hand wave across the screen, “Alexis, go ahead and show us what you’ve done so far”

“Okay,” I breathe and click on my computer so my PowerPoint presentation pops up, “So, as you know I am exploring the internal and external politics of vampire covens as a movement. Thus far I have completed 12 of the 20 planned semi-structured interviews-“

“Alexis, sorry to interrupt, but what is your hypothesis?” Sauer asks.

“Um, well I plan on using a grounded theory approach. So, uh, instead of having a concrete hypothesis I will use the grounded theory to look at the data and have it lead to conclusions” I explain.

Sauer hums loudly, “have you thought about taking a quantitative approach?”

No, I haven’t and if he had read my proposal he would know why. “I believe that the qualitative data will give me a more nuanced understanding of the processes in place and since the covens are so secretive there is no way to know how many vampires there are to get a random sample, so it would have to be descriptive statistics”

Sauer hums again but says nothing else so I click to go to the second slide. I’m already sweating.

“I have managed to transcribe and begin coding most of the 12 interviews-“

“Alexis, sorry just another question- what if you did quantitative surveys after you finished the qualitative interviews? I think you would get some good data and use what you found in your interviews as a basis for your survey questions” I see him in the corner of my screen stroking his nearly-there beard.

Great idea, I’ll just spend another year completing my Ph.D., no problem, none at all. So what if my funding runs out before I can finish? Maybe I can live under one of the bridges that cross the Main River. “Uh, I suppose that is possible, would that be necessary? I would need to get permission from the covens since I only discussed qualitative interviews with them.”

I really don’t want to have to go back to the covens and ask for permission to do qualitative surveys; at best they will think I’m disorganized.

“Maybe we should see what she has before we decide on whether to add on a survey?” I’ve never been more glad that Tobias is on the call. Seriously, if I could somehow go through the screen, I would kiss him.

Sauer hums in agreement and so I click to my next slide, “So early trends I see in the data are two distinct visions of vampirism and of how vampires engage with non-vampires. Members of the von Graf coven use elitist language to discuss vampirism and whereas the Weiß coven discusses it in terms of rights. Think of it as a capitalist vs. a socialist idea of vampirism. The vastly different-”

“So the von Graf coven votes for the center-right CDU party and the Weiß coven votes for the center-left SPD party?” Sauer interrupts, one of his fat fingers pointing at something on his screen as he reads.

“Well, no. I mean… probably, but that’s not my point” I try to clarify, why do non-political scientists always reduce politics into political parties? “I mean that the von Graf coven is extremely selective in spreading vampirism and believes that new vampires should be selected by merit whereas the Weiß coven believes everyone should have access to benefits of vampirism”

I see my supervisor slowly nod on my screen as his eyes dance across his monitor. Tobias just sits there smiling like an idiot; he really likes vampire research a little too much.

“Excellent, Alexis, write it up, email it to me and let’s publish a paper on it”

“Yes?” I am so relieved that he likes my work thus far. It’s like a big weight is lifted off my shoulders.

“I need to go, but I look forward to reading your paper over my Christmas break” It’s only been a few minutes and he has only seen three of my slides I spend days preparing.

I’m shocked for a moment before I respond, “Christmas break? But that’s only-“

Sauer disappears from zoom call.

“Tobias, how am I supposed to write a paper by Christmas if I haven’t even finished all the interviews yet?” I try not to sound whiny, I do. I’m not sure I achieved it.

I see Tobias’s shoulder rise and fall, “on the bright side, it wasn’t like you were going to have a social life with this lockdown anyways.”

The squeak I accidentally let out isn’t very professional at all.

****

Warring Logics is up to chapter 28 on my patreon. Check out the link for more info: https://www.patreon.com/heatherjacobs

Happy reading!

Heather