"Critiquing Calypso: Authorial and Academic Bias in the Reading of a Young Adult Novel" (original) (raw)
The Truth about Fiction: In Our Own Write
1995
This paper presents aspects of a study in progress on the legitimate function of fiction in research. A section on methodology describes how the study started with a project of narratives written in response to the black and white photographs of one of the collaborators. Analysis of the response process revealed a connection between fiction and truth. As the project evolved and was critiqued, the focus changed and transcriptions from presentations, stories from other doctoral students, and an eclectic group of readings moved the study from the concrete response to the photographs and narratives to the theoretical, eclectic, and philosophical. The next section describes how the study evolved and was reinterpreted in response to the specific comments of others regarding executing the work, researching for meaning, continuing the execution, acting as teacher researchers, and researching the research. A section on the researchers' own agenda touches on crafting, the ethics and aesthetics of fiction, and the function of fiction. A conclusion poses some seminal questions for future discussion and suggests that fiction can be an alternative way to meet the needs of researchers wishing to articulate sensitive issues or convey what literal language cannot. A photograph that was the basis of interpretive stories is included. (Contains 85 references.) (JB)
Valid Fictional Contributions to Non-Fictional Debates: Fictocritical Writing in Artistic Research
Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis, 2023
Fictocritical writing has been defined as an interdisciplinary practice that seeks to 'blur the boundaries between the fictional, the factual and the theoretical'. As a mode of experimental writing, it holds a great potential to reinvigorate the current state of critical art writing-specifically, artistic research. The present paper sets out to investigate the usefulness of venturing beyond the constative function of the text and discusses the performative nature of writing employed at the service of artistic enquiry. To that end, I examine three key case studies that shed light on the intricacies of fictocritical writing: Bert Danckaert's 'The Extras', Barbara Browning's 'The Gift', and Katrina Palmer's 'The Dark Object'. They all constitute artistic research projects written as novels (two of them are also PhD theses) that, at the same time, are inscribed in an art project. Furthermore, I offer a practice-based example, an excerpt from my novel 'The Fantasy of the Novel' (also part of my PhD thesis), with the hope that the reader will be able to apprehend the effects of fictocritical writing directly, rather than just their description.
In the Flesh: Fiction as an "Incarnational Art
2015
In the Flesh: Fiction as an "Incarnational Art" I arrived in Chicago in January of 2014, fresh from the warm Southern embrace of an imaginative English department at a small Christian liberal arts university. Chicago, as I saw it, was rich in artistic appreciation and participation, but equally abounding in rugged industrial pragmatism. Throughout that spring 2014 semester, I commuted from Pilsen, my beloved neighborhood known for its artists (some of whom also worked in a more "practical" job to earn money) to the business center of the city (which was not devoid of artists either). Although the world of ideas and intuition can overlap the world of business and materialism, the two often conflict. I am by no account a professional artist, but I do consider literary art an essential part of my self-expression and identity. My struggle to find the time and energy to write as much as I felt I needed to while in Chicago enabled me to empathize with the artists in my community. As I attempted to balance practical necessities like cooking, cleaning, and working at my internship, with the need to regularly and creatively express myself, it became clear to me that sustaining the creative mind and soul does not always coincide perfectly with sustaining the body. When time, energy, and resources are limited, one realm of human need must take precedence over the other. This dichotomy led me toward an interest in the intersection between art-especially literary art-and our physical human lives. Thornberry Thesis 2 When Amy Sonheim, one of my professors in that precious English department mentioned above, came to town in February, she suggested over lunch that I read Flannery O'Connor's Mystery and Manners. Valuing her recommendation, I immediately ordered the book and soon found that O'Connor, too, takes note of the split between the realms of body and of soul, of form and of content, or-in her words-of mystery and of manners. In "The Nature and Aim of Fiction," one of several essays that make up the book, O'Connor briefly addresses the conflict that arises when artists, particularly writers, seek to "write well and live well at the same time" (66). She implies that good writers rarely live in financial comfort unless the writer already has copious amounts of money available by some other means. That is, good writing is a full-time job that doesn't pay well. However, writers who work for the quality of what they write don't write primarily because they want financial rewards.
Studying Fiction, 2021
The right of Jessica Mason and Marcello Giovanelli to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. five years. We are grateful to everyone we have taught and worked with; all of you have helped to shape the ideas in this book. As always, we are grateful as ever to our colleagues, families and friends and would also like to acknowledge the support of the team at Routledge at the various stages of writing. Finally, Jessica Mason would like to extend special thanks to Ben Hannam and Kate Longson, without whom her involvement in the final preparations of the manuscript of this book would simply not have been possible. We are grateful for permission to reproduce parts of the following research papers in Chapter 2 of this book: "Well I don't feel that": Schemas, worlds and authentic reading in the classroom, by Marcello Giovanelli and Jessica Mason, English in Education, 2015, reprinted by permission of the publisher (Taylor & Francis Group, http://www.tandfonline.com) "What do you think?" Let me tell you: Discourse about texts and the literature classroom, by Jessica Mason and Marcello Giovanelli, Changing English, 2017, reprinted by permission of the publisher (Taylor & Francis Group, http://www.tandfonline.com)
Writers on Writers: Literary Biography, A Distinctive Genre
1976
This essay identifies and illustrates a number of significant features that, in combination, make literary biography a distinct and recognizable genre. Among these are considerations of the various aspects of the composition of literary works, such as sources of inspiration, authors' motives and methods in transforming life into art, and similarities and discrepancies between fact and fiction. Literary biographers relate literary criticism to their subject's life in diverse ways-sometimes for exegesis, sometimes to show the style of a literary mind or personality, and sometimes to find analogues between lives and works. Literary biography also shows the author's art in the perspective of his or her lifetime, illustrating the mechanical aspects of composition and, less often, the creative aspects. Finally, literary temperament, the placement of the author and the author's works in historical and intellectual milieus, and the provision of the particulars of publication and bibliography are also goals of the literary biographer. (KS) * * via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRS is not * responsible for the quality of the original document. Reproductions * * supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original.
2005
This paperaddresses aspectsof critical writing and campares these with the requirements of creativewriting. Commenting upon how the creative informs the critical, and vice versa, the paper examines how critical writing in cultural studies contexts necessarily draws on an amalgam of the theory and practice of everyday life. It argues that a journal article or academic paper worth reading in a critical forum requires novel insights and clear expression to make it interesting. Why academic authorship can be an appropriate indicator Copyrightof Full Textrests with the original copyright owner and, exceptas permitted underthe CopyrightAct 1968, copying this copyright material is prohibitedwithout the permission of the owner or its exclusive licensee or agentor by way of a licencefrom CopyrightAgencyLimited. For information about such licencescontact CopyrightAgencyLimitedon (02) 93947600 (ph) or (02) 93947601 (fax) By way of introduction Why write a novel Foreword by Philip Blackwell Deciding which novel to write Authorship Approaching and working with publishers Read ... study ... analyse Research Developing plot ideas Developing characters Your readers' needs Outlining Structuring your material Using what YI)U know ... and what you don't know Getting started Getting it written Drafting and redrattino Snaqs, dead ends and false trails Matters of style Readability Language and style The 'extra bits' Lenqth Keeping your book in mint Rewriting Textbooks in the electronic age Getting published Presentation Appendix: A sample book proposal Doing it aaain Why academic authorship can be an appropriate indicator 5
The Novelist's Predicament Today
英文学評論, 1970
There may have been times in the past when the serious novelist's proper subject and concern were, in more ways than not, compatible with the commonculture, when his creations could further the creative processes of the society he lived in, but that unfortunately for the serious novelist at least, is not now the case. At his best the novelist today is undermining the concerted efforts of his society. He is the reader's enemy, seeking it often seems to annihilate good with bad indiscriminately. His best work is subversive, and yet it is to the best in his work, the act of sabotage, that his readers must be won. The fact that contact between the serious novelist and the reading-public has broken down so badly in this century seems to me plain evidence that the price in cultural revolution demanded
Sentence by sentence, works of fiction are not beholden to norms of truth. However, many who appreciate literature agree that it has things to teach us, and not just to the extent that it approximates journalism. This essay offers a model of fiction according to which many such works behave as suppositions for the sake of argument, but differ from everyday suppositions according to the norms associated with various literary genres. This model shows how fiction can justify rather than just espouse propositions, thereby explaining a connection with knowledge. In addition, the model explains the extent to which we rightly rely on the firsthand experience of authors, who in spite of producing fiction are treated as sources of testimonial knowledge.