Jess Moriarty | University of Brighton (original) (raw)

Papers by Jess Moriarty

Academic writing can be difficult to accomplish and disengaging to read and yet the ‘publish or p... more Academic writing can be difficult to accomplish and disengaging to read and yet the ‘publish or perish’ culture makes writing a necessary part of nearly every academic role. This paper identifies autoethnography as a methodology that synthesises autobiography and social critique in order to resist dominant authoritative discourse. Autoethnography seeks to engage readers of the research in evocative texts that detail the complex and messy lives of the researcher and the researched. This paper reports on a research project at the University of Brighton where academics were interviewed in order to gain insights into their experiences with academic writing. The research data has been used to inform an Autoethnodrama set in a fictional university on the south coast, providing the reader with an emotional text that explores experiences with academic writing and the potential ‘Impact’ on academic culture and life.

Writing and publishing are increasingly crucial to the development of a successful academic caree... more Writing and publishing are increasingly crucial to the development of a successful academic career. However, academics typically receive little guidance and support on how to establish and maintain this strand of their job. Any advice that does exist tends to focus on the ...

This book identifies analytical autoethnography as a methodology that synthesises autobiography a... more This book identifies analytical autoethnography as a methodology that synthesises autobiography and social critique in order to resist, and also change, dominant authoritative discourse. The author has interviewed academics in order to elicit autobiographical experiences with academic writing and the so-called ‘publish or perish culture’. Evidence from the author’s autobiographical experiences and the interview data have been used to inform a short autoethnodrama set in a university on the UK. The autoethnodrama considers the ‘impact’ of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and current such exercises, and the possible and real effects of the pressure to ‘publish or perish’ on institutional culture and individual lives. The book identifies staff development strategies that offer the potential for a less stressful academic writing process and democratic university environment including mentoring and other explicit institutional support. In addition the author identifies the process of producing this work as a means of further democratising the conventional academic writing process and progressing the case for a more inclusive and expansive approach to academic writing. The author proposes a more holistic and person-centred approach to academic writing and also to academic life. Autoethnography is an evolving methodology in qualitative research that values creative and personal writing in academic research.

Autoethnography offers alternative ways of telling stories about our research that differ from th... more Autoethnography offers alternative ways of telling stories about our research that differ from the conventions of traditional academic writing. Writing that provides social and cultural analysis, critique and commentary and also details personal, creative and lived stories is important because it offers a form of resistance to dominant, privileged voices in academic work and provides a way of knowing that is more democratic, holistic, ethical and inclusive (Canagarajah, 2002). At doctoral level, legitimising autoethnography as a rigorous methodology is still potentially problematic (Doloriet & Sambrook, 2011). This chapter explores my own experiences of using analytical autoethnography (Anderson, 2006) as a methodology in my thesis and of how my research and my experience of completing the doctorate interspersed and overlapped. Autoethnographies tend to tell stories of pain and suffering which any doctoral student will agree is applicable when detailing the process of completing a thesis. I have attempted to represent the fracturing and splintering of my own life via an evocative and messy text that aims to empower the reader with an enlightened reading, facilitating meaning making that is not determined by an omnipotent author telling them how and what to think. Instead the text interweaves, overlaps, stops and starts and reflects and represents the splintered narratives of my real life.

Following recommendations from the Dearing Committee in May 2000, Universities UK issued a joint ... more Following recommendations from the Dearing Committee in May 2000, Universities UK issued a joint policy statement on Progress Files in HE. As a result, their implementation was to take place over five years from 2005. The government has since relaxed the implementation deadline because of the QAA’s recognition that the HEIs are at different stages of development in relation to Personal Development Planning (PDP). It was therefore recommended that the implementation should be phased which would enable HE institutions to introduce the initiative in a more structured manner, as applicable to individual Schools and Departments. In generic terms, the PDP should incorporate two elements: the institutional record of students’ achievement and students’ individual record of achievements, progress reviews, and so on. At the School of Language, Literature and Communication at the University of Brighton the PDPs have become a part of the undergraduate degree programme for 2007/08.The aim of this initiative has been to link students’ academic study with reflective self-awareness, but equally to build a culture of inclusion and a sense of identity amongst, in particular, first year students. In addition, the initiative has been set up to enable students to make links between their degree and future career prospects. Through students’ and staff feedback this paper will analyse and evaluate a range of issues that have arisen from the pilot year, as well as recommend alternatives based on the lessons that have been learned whilst implementing the PDP. The paper will also reflect on how this pilot has influenced and developed other initiatives within the School, particularly in relation to the issues of student support and retention.

As lovers of Literature we are all compelled to tell stories. Imparting who we are, our experienc... more As lovers of Literature we are all compelled to tell stories. Imparting who we are, our experiences, our take on life is at the very core of what it is to be human: it helps us to connect, to empathise, to belong. This paper reports on a project that was funded by the Community University Partnership Programme where students in the School of Humanities at the University of Brighton worked with residents of a local retirement village where the telling and capturing of inter-generational stories provided inspiration for creative work. Creative writing students are encouraged to share their stories, real and imagined with peers and tutors but these connections often stop at the classroom door. Students in the humanities often find it difficult to make links between their studies and the employability agenda and this project aimed to addresses this issue and enable students to reflect on their responsibility as social, democratic citizens. The paper will report on the project and give examples of the creative writing that was inspired by the intergenerational workshops

This paper argues that linking creative practice to the Personal Development Planning (PDP) agend... more This paper argues that linking creative practice to the Personal Development Planning (PDP) agenda provides opportunities for students to make meaningful associations between their university studies and their ongoing vocational and personal development. Supporting students with their creative process can help to enhance their assessed work and also provide them with life skills that they can take into the work place and lives beyond university. Enabling students to make links between their sources for inspiration and the development of their creative practice can sometimes be difficult, meaning that students fail to see their personal creativity as having a meaningful effect on their practice, their vocational ambitions and personal development.

The author identifies analytical autoethnography as an empirical methodology that synthesises aut... more The author identifies analytical autoethnography as an empirical methodology that synthesises autobiography and social critique in order to resist, and also change, dominant academic discourse. The data from twelve open-ended interviews with academics from a variety of subject areas at one university has been considered and the author has carried out narrative analysis in order to elicit autobiographical experiences with academic writing and the audit culture. Evidence from the author's autobiographical experiences and the interview data have been used to inform a short autoethnodrama set in a university on the south coast. This triangulation of research-autobiography-script seeks to prioritise the experiences of the people involved and maintain the balance between rigorous academic analysis and experiential autobiographical reflection via a creative and emotionally charged text. The autoethnodrama considers the 'impact' of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and current such exercises, and the possible and real effects of neo-liberalism and the audit culture on institutional culture and individual lives.

Performing Ethos: International Journal of Ethics in Theatre & Performance

This editorial argues that performance in maternity traverses a public/private binary which enabl... more This editorial argues that performance in maternity traverses a public/private binary which enables women artists, writers and creatives to occupy a liminal space of both performance and identity that can give voice to critical notions of what it is to mother during and after COVID-19 across the world. It shows how the articles included in the edition critically and creatively locate the writers within those public and private discourses, negotiating feminist conceptions of ethos as co-collaboration of knowledge through praxis. Art – visual, written and performed – acts as both salve and enquiry, comfort and cry – and the editorial shows how the contributors’ work embraced and challenged these contexts and constraints during COVID-19.

Journal of Gender-Based Violence

The COVID-19 crisis has spotlighted particular insidious social problems, including gender-based ... more The COVID-19 crisis has spotlighted particular insidious social problems, including gender-based violence (GBV), and their relationship with movement and confinement. As well as changing configurations of GBV, the experience of the global pandemic and the immobilities of national lockdowns have created space to imagine GBV – to connect with past experiences in the context of our rethinking of current experiences across multiple spaces. In this article we explicate a transdisciplinary feminist collaborative autoethnographic storying of GBV during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the ‘trans/feminist methodology’ of Pryse (2000), we seek to contribute knowledge of GBV through the lens of COVID-19 using our own experiential life storying. In this article we show the potential of this method in understanding lived experiences over time that are situated in a specific context. Our experiences of GBV, as viewed through the pandemic, are presented as fragments, which then make up a collectiv...

Journal of autoethnography, 2022

In earlier work 1 2 collaborative autoethnography was identified as a viable methodology for rese... more In earlier work 1 2 collaborative autoethnography was identified as a viable methodology for researching stories that drew on lived experiences with domestic abuse. Collaborative autoethnography offers a method of working with women outside of academia who have experienced gender-based violence (GBV) and including them as co-researchers whose writings can and should be valued as academic research. In this article, also a collaborative autoethnography, the authors explore methods for storying autobiographical experiences of GBV as a potential way of reclaiming stories whilst navigating the legal, ethical and moral dilemmas sometimes associated with autobiographical writing that might help to make these stories less difficult to write, and also read, avoiding stereotypes that have led to critique around battle-weary narratives of GBV 3 and bad romance tropes 4. They argue that evocative texts drawing on lived experiences but layering the real with the imaginary, the remembered with the fictitious, can be more accessible to read and write. Cook and Fonow 5 argue that feminist work is often creative and spontaneous, and this article will detail writing methods that were shared by the authors in creative workshops with survivors of GBV as part of a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) 6. They also share examples of their own stories that have been inspired by this approach as well as the challenges and motivations of working in this way.

Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies

In the Covid-19 global crisis, gender-based violence (GBV) has been reshaped and reconfigured, wi... more In the Covid-19 global crisis, gender-based violence (GBV) has been reshaped and reconfigured, with increases in some places and decreases in others. During our exploration of the changes in GBV through trans/feminist collaborative reflexive storying, we noticed the fragmentary nature of our storied recollections, which both represented and heightened the emotions in the work. With an intention of distilling the words even further, we challenged ourselves, as transdisciplinary researchers, to create a collaborative renga poem, which we titled, “Silent Footsteps.” An ancient Japanese form, the renga is a series of short, linked verses. This article demonstrates that renga offers an accessible, collaborative poetic research method, not only for research teams but also for non-academic groups to connect with each other. It has the ability to convey deep emotion, with an authentic personal voice, while being confined to structure and rules. Along with creating two stanzas each turn in a...

Triarchy Press, Jul 1, 2020

Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung, May 1, 2019

In this report we present a refle tion on the Collaborative Poeti s Network's first "Carnival of ... more In this report we present a refle tion on the Collaborative Poeti s Network's first "Carnival of Invention" whi h was held on 15 th June 2018 at the University of Brighton, England. Collaborative poeti s is an arts-based resear h method that brings together expertise from artists, a ademi s, This work is li ensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Li ense.

Gramarye Journal, Sep 1, 2021

Autoethnographies from the Neoliberal Academy, 2019

This paper presents an exploratory case study on the use of blogs for peer feedback in an undergr... more This paper presents an exploratory case study on the use of blogs for peer feedback in an undergraduate creative writing course. The study explores the feedback mechanism, to argue that timely feedback and peer interaction play an important part in the development of students’ writings and their ability to critically evaluate each others’ work. The study was designed to help students to improve their writing skills through peer feedback and also to help them overcome any anxieties with reading their work aloud in class. This qualitative case study is comprised of student feedback from the blogs and responses to a questionnaire. The paper seeks to suggest that blogs provided a ‘safe’ environment for the students to give and received feedback which in turn contributed towards the development of their writing ability.