Off to Sea in a
Plate-Glass Battleship? : A Dialogic Methodology for Creative Writing Research
Socrates:
What of the other poets? Don’t they talk about these same topics?
Ion: Yes –but Socrates, they
haven’t composed like Homer has.
Socrates: Oh, really? Worse?
Ion: Much worse.
Socrates: Homer has done it better?
Ion: Yes, yes, better, by Zeus.
Socrates: So then, Ion, my dear
chap, when several people are discussing numbers, and one of them speaks best of the all, someone, I
imagine, will know which of them this
good speaker is?
(Plato 1987:51)
The aim of this paper is to map out
a possible research methodology for an academic creative writer. My motives for doing this are two-fold;
firstly as a final year PhD student I believe that intellectual honesty requires
me to try and state my own methodological approach to research, and secondly a
belief that there is a need for an open-ended debate about the concepts of
‘practice-based research’, ‘thesis’, ‘post-graduate training’ and ‘original
contribution to knowledge’ in context of creative writing.
In conducting this mapping process
I will, therefore, firstly explore a number of academic traditions which
address research issues similar to those faced by academic creative writers. This
will involve analyzing the traditions of literary studies and the social
sciences, as well as the discourse about research that is embedded in practice-based
pedagogies. It will do so in order to place my own methodology in dialogue with
these traditions. I will then advance my own open-ended dialogic methodology based
on the philosophical writings of the Bakhtin circle, which will, I hope, highlight
the social nature of meaning-making and knowledge in creative writing research.
In advancing this dialogic methodology, this paper will argue for a particular
emphasis in the relationship between my research and practice, by outlining a new
notion of my research as a practice-informing
activity. I will then give an example of this methodology by narrating my
own research activities over the last few years.
This article will conclude by
noting that this model is but one way amongst many that an academic creative
writer (as I currently configure myself) might explore the relationship between
their research activities and their practice. This conclusion, I believe, has
implications for the type of education that institutions provide to academic
creative writers.
The position of Creative Writing Research within UK universities
No academic-looking piece of
writing appears complete it seems, without the obligatory literature review, so
I will begin this paper begin by reviewing the emerging ‘position’ of creative
writing research within UK universities.
The UK Council for Graduate
Education (UKCGE) Working Group of 2001 placed Creative Writing amongst
Creative and Performing Arts and Design (CPAD) in its recent report. In doing
so, it explicitly recognised the role of practice in the training needs of
Creative Writers. UKCGE report noted that:
“Practice
denotes the exercise of appropriate skills in the creation of an original work
in the field or fields of creative and performing arts and design” (UKCGE 2001:
10)
However, they then noted that a
researcher should also produce an accompanying ‘written element’ that
“should be more than a factual report, that it should define
some critical and intellectual perspective and that it should not merely
'justify' the practice.” (UKCGE 2001: 16)
In doing so, the UKCGE report flags-up
the dual responsibilities placed on Creative Writing Researchers, to be both
practitioners and academic researchers. It is my belief that this duality will be
highly productive in the mid-term. However, prior to this reward, there are a
number of issues that are raised by this relationship that need to be questioned,
in particular, the obviously problematic relationship between the roles of researcher
and practitioner in this duality.
The current vagueness of this relationship
is particularly troublesome, for many issues, such as professional training, have
only been addressed in the vaguest of terms to date. For example, what kinds of
competencies should creative writing researchers demonstrate for this award?
Who exactly is competent to examining Creative Writing candidates? What sort of
submission should a Creative Writing candidate make? All of these questions, I
believe, inform the methodological approaches adopted by Creative Writing
Researchers so I will address these issues while setting out my own approach.
I do not believe that there will
ever be a one-size fits all answer to any of the above. Creative Writing is, like
many other all academic disciplines, varied and it will never be capable of
being rendered as a simple formula. However,
as the existence of this article testifies, I believe that the diverse methodological
approaches adopted and documented by the current generation of PhD candidates
will have to address some of these issues explicitly, in order to facilitate a
much-needed disciplinary debate about methodology.
Creative Writing and Literary Studies
In the quote from the UKCGE report
above they note that researchers should ‘define some critical and intellectual
perspective’ in their research findings. The implication of this statement is
that the researcher needs to be more than a practitioner (or a practitioner of
a different stripe) and should demonstrate skills outside of their
practice-based activities. Questions then arise about how a
practitioner-researcher identifies, acquires and demonstrates these skills.
In my research (and in the
arguments I make below) I have appropriated methodologies from a number of
disciplines, including literary studies, cultural studies and social science to
construct my intellectual perspective. This has made me acutely aware of the varying
and often conflicting natures of research methodologies within and between
disciplines. This is, of course, to be expected, for as Elaine Martin notes in
her introduction to Dangerous Research:
“Different
knowledge areas have their different value system, their different tests of
truth.” (Martin 2003: 2)
However, despite these important
differences, there are a number of key similarities. Significantly (to a follower of Bakhtin, at
least) a number of leading scholars in these diverse disciplines have noted
that the epistemologies of these disciplines have something of a dialogic
character about them. I believe that this is a key insight in the development
of my creative writing research methodology.
Folly Itself: A Brief Description of the Literary Method
It is without doubt a colossal
piece of folly to try and reduce the diversity and depth of the three millennia
of literary scholarship to a short methodical summary. Quite simply, there is no such thing as the literary methodology any more than
there is a uniform scientific methodology. In such a deeply reflective and
reflexive area of study, subtle and not-so-subtle differences of approach are
the meat and drink of the subject. However, there are familial similarities
between the diverse approaches taken by contemporary literary scholars. For
whether the researcher is happy to describe their research method as ‘close
reading’, ‘analysis’, ‘attending to the words on the page’, ‘deconstruction’, ‘seeking
aporia’, ‘arguing a case’, ‘reading against the grain’,
‘developing a feminist-‘, ‘post-colonial- ‘or ‘queer- reading’ all these
approaches involve the researcher engaging their own partially-internalized,
partially-explicit theoretico-critical views of
textuality, culture and identity with some facet of literary culture.
This literary-critical engagement
manifests a series of interpretations and evaluations which are in turn used by
the researcher to critique theirs (and others) positions. By doing so, they develop
further opportunities to create fresh evaluations and interpretations which, at
key points in their careers, they then arranged into formal arguments that
present the case for their evaluation of their particular perspective.
Through developing a Bakhtinian
approach to my own research I have come to understand this aspect of literary
studies as an inter-subjective dialogic activity; one that is based on making a
rhetorical case, rather than on presenting a falsifiable hypothesis. As I will
discuss later, this means that a researcher in literary studies can be said to
have made a ‘contribution to knowledge’ when she is acknowledged by her peers (sometimes
belatedly, sometimes begrudgingly) as a participant in the ‘ancient and exalted
conversation’ of literary studies (Richter 1998:14). Significantly, this
participation can take multiple forms.
Further Folly: A Brief Description of the Literary Thesis
Traditionally, literary scholars
have formalized the presentation of their research into some kind of extended,
highly-stylized form of writing (a scholarly article, a chapter, a thesis or a book
length work of non-fiction). Most PhD students in the UK have been required to
produce a written thesis in which they present a highly-structured argument
(Watson 1970: 35). Until fairly recently the form and discourse of this thesis was
largely taken for granted by scholars and it usually conformed to the series of
unquestioned norms that ones sees turned out in academic style books. This kind
of academically-sanctioned writing has been characterised by Blair et al. as “refined, ahistorical,
smoothly finished univocality”(see
Blair et al. 1999:563).
However, despite its claims to
tradition sanction, the univocal essay has not, in fact, been the only mode of
discourse used by scholars and critics through the ages. Plato, in works such
as Ion (see the quote at the
beginning of this essay), used the ‘Socratic Dialogue’ to express his arguments
(Plato 1987). The classical Roman poet,
Horace, expressed his ideas about poetry in the form of a verse letter (see
Horace 1998:65) and the eighteenth century critic-poet Alexander Pope delivered
his ‘an Essay on Criticism’ in heroic couplets (Pope 1978:64).
The use of non-univocal forms has persisted
within academia. For example, in the
1990s Richard A. Lanham, Professor of English at UCLA used the ‘Socratic Dialogue’
for the last section of his book The Electronic Word. In his preamble to this section he argues that
he made this choice because it ‘seemed the appropriate form’ for the subject he
was discussing (Lanham 1993:258).
Blair et al. note that the dominant univocal discourse is being challenged
by a number of contemporary perspectives as well. They observe that:-
"The
critical writings within the poststructuralist stance often assume
extraordinary forms, because the orthodox and prescribed modes of academic
writing are unfit or unable to accommodate their positions."(Blair et al
1999: 566)
This point is particularly relevant
for creative writers, as it suggests that there is nothing inevitable or obvious
about the form of their exegesis. In fact, it tends to suggest that the very
mode of expression of their exegesis should also be informed by their research
as well. For example, a notional ‘feminist’ researcher-practitioner, arguing in
the manner of Blair et al. above might
well be required by their own arguments to produce an
exegesis that challenges and exposes the patriarchal assumptions of academic
discourse they are critiquing. Similarly this paper, as an example of a
discourse from a dialogic perspective, uses the first person (to make explicit
the important role played by judgement in this subject), tentative locutions,
such as ‘I hope’ (to make explicit the rhetorical character of this work) as
well more traditional academic mode of discourse, such a bibliography (to make
explicit that it is addressed to academics), in order to highlight its discursive
position.
Similar Folly: A Brief Description of Methodology in the Social
Sciences
There is, similarly, a myriad of
methodologies in the Social Sciences. In Real
World Research Colin Robson broadly breaks down social research methodologies
into two categories based on fixed or flexible design. Broadly speaking, fixed-design
experimenters adopt a ‘natural science’ methodology by conducting laboratory-style
quantitative experiments (Robson 2002: 4). Flexible design methodologies, by
contrast, occur in the less-controlled, real world situations. They involve the
researcher in engaging mixed qualitative- quantitative or qualitative research
methods such as ethnography, case studies and hermeneutics which share some methodological
approaches with the literary approaches noted above. Critically, these kinds of
research methodologies involve using the researcher-as-instrument
in which the researcher is routinely making interpretation and judgements about
their research, much in the manner of a literary researcher (Robson 2002: 167).
This role is required because as Robson
notes, flexible designs are:
“necessarily
interactive, enabling the sensitive enquirer to capitalize on unexpected
eventualities” (Robson 2002: 6).
The issue of methodology often
becomes quite heated amongst social scientists. Flexible design approaches, in
particular, are routinely criticised for lacking academic rigour. However, as
suicidologist David Webb argues:-
“the demand for objective
observables at the core of traditional science means that it is unable to
enquire into subjective experience
with sufficient depth of understanding” (Webb 2003: 25)
I would argue that ‘flexible-design’
social science research is also somewhat dialogic in character, as the
researcher is making a social judgment, based on their own social positioning
and understandings. I would also argue that the concept of researcher-as-instrument might (with care) also be usefully appropriated
into a discussion of a dialogic creative writing methodology.
The Ultimate Folly: The question of value in the post-modern age
Robson further sub-divides flexible
design into a number of sub-categories. Of especial interest to creative writing
researchers are his descriptions of evaluation
and action research. As Robson notes
in his preface:
“Many real world
studies are evaluations. They try to provide information about how some
intervention, procedure or system or whatever, is
functioning; and how it might be improved.” (Robson 2002: Preface).
Although it is tempting to declare boldly
that as a Creative Writing Researcher that I am similarly ‘adopting’ an action research
methodology – that is to say, I am self-evidently seeking to evaluate and
improve my practice - this kind of un-problematised
evaluation would certainly appear quite naïve to most academic social
scientists and literary theorists. This is because the question of improvement
and evaluation are, for these disciplines, extremely problematic issues that
reach to the very heart of most academic disputes (see Connor 1992). It is
worth noting, therefore, that in practice, evaluation and action research
methodologies are often framed by other methodological approaches, including
specific methodological approaches to the role of theory in the research. In
fact, researchers are often engaged in the pains-taking exercise of claiming
value for their evaluation.
Robson notes that social scientists
adopt methodological approaches to theory itself which they describe as theory verification research and theory generation research. In the
former, a theoretical position is tested by series of observations or
interventions designed to the researcher’s hypothesis. In the latter, the
researcher conducts a dialogic conversation with the phenomenon under
investigation and produces an evaluative theory that is then placed by the
researcher into the wider disciplinary context. Both methodologies can be used
during the course of a long research programme.
In arguing for a dialogic methodological
approach to creative writing, I will apply these notions of theory verification research and theory generation research (investigated
by the use of a researcher-as-instrument)
in my dialogic model of creative writing research. However, before tackling
issue it is necessary to review the epistemology underlying the notion of
practice-based education, and to discuss its relevance for a Creative Writing
Researcher.
Practice-based methodologies
Donald Schön noted in the preface of
his highly influential book The
Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action that he had
become: -
“convinced that universities are not devoted to the
production and distribution of fundamental knowledge in general. They are
institutions committed, for the most part, to a particular epistemology, a view of knowledge that fosters selective
inattention to practical competence and professional artistry" (Schön 1983:vii)
Practice-based pedagogy has, therefore,
developed in oppositional mode to the traditional technical-rational views of
research.
For example, in contrast to the
scientific approach adopted by natural scientists, Schön argues that practitioners
adopt methodologies that are highly effective outside the laboratory in the ‘real
world’. A world that is characterised by Schön as being full of "complexity,
uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and value conflicts"(Schön 1983:14)
in which the fixed-model design of controlled experiments can not be applied successfully
because there are always inter-subjective human elements and unaccountable
variables at play in the situation. In these respects, practice-based education
shares an outlook with the real world approaches of social scientists. It also
describes many of the conditions that creative writers find themselves in while
conducting their practice.
The key element of Schön’s understanding
of practice is his notion of reflection. He identifies practitioners as using
reflection-in-action, reflection-on-reflection, as well as reflection-on-theory
and reflection-on-the-results. Most of this reflection is not based on
hypothesis-testing experiments, but relies on the judgments, knowledge and
artistry of the practitioner. Reflection-on-theory and reflection-on-the-results
are of particular interest to the arguments I am making in this paper because of
their dialogic character.
Schön argues for a cyclical view of
the research-practice relationship in which reflection-on-theory leads to
experiment and reflection-on-the-results leads to theory. In this manner the
practitioner conducts a dialogic conversation with the situation and with their
former selves over a period of time. However, Schön places this dialogue within
a practitioner framework by emphasizing the role of artistry and by noting that
practitioner knowledge is: -
"personal, bounded by his commitment to appreciative system
and overarching theory.” (Schön 1983: 166)
Although I have found Schön’s
concepts useful in developing my own research methodology, this kind of
approach presents the practitioner-researcher with a number of methodological
problems. Firstly, by describing this kind of knowledge as being ‘personal’
Schön runs the risk of categorizing this kind of knowledge as being merely
‘subjective’ and having it dismissed. As I note later, the Bakhtinian concept
of knowledge and meaning-making resolves this issue by placing these activities
outside of ‘mere’ subjectivity, by describing them as inter-subjective, social
activities that are firmly rooted within a particular society. Secondly, by
emphasizing the problem-solving qualities of the practitioner, Schön runs the
risks of collapsing the roles of researcher and practitioner in a unified
subject. The dialogic methodology helps us to tease (momentarily) these roles apart,
by providing an account of how one individual plays multiple social roles. In
doing so, it also provides a theoretical framework for describing how the
practitioner’s reflection-on-theory
and reflection-on-the-results relate
to a practice-informing research
methodology.
A Dialogue with the Phenomena: Talk-back
Another key concept developed by Schön is the concept of ‘talk-back’. He notes that:-
"The
designer's moves tend, happily or unhappily, to produce consequences other than
those intended. When this happens, the designer may take account of the
unintended changes he has made in the situation, in accordance with his initial
appreciation of it, the situation "talks back" and he responds to the
situation's talk-back."(Schön 1983:79)
Schön further describes this phenomenon
by using another dialogic metaphor, noting that the practitioner’s:-
"global experiment is also a reflective conversation with the
situation" (Schön 1983:103)
Am I Practicing or Researching?
I believe that Schön ideas of
practice can usefully inform the pedagogy of creative writing, particularly at
an undergraduate level. His ideas of a practicum and the role of mentors in a
practitioner’s training are particularly useful. However, as Robson notes, the
problem with a practitioner approach to research is that the researcher has got
add something over and above the pre-existing levels of understanding. In
essence they have to try and answer the question – am I researching (or just conducting
my usual practice)? In many cases, the distinction between the two is necessarily
and understandably vague. However in the case of a PhD student or academic
researcher, charged with a commitment to providing an original contribution to
knowledge, there is as Robson notes–
“A need to
establish a clear difference of
procedure between the research and the procedures of professional practice
itself, to guard against…'we knew that already' or ' we do that every day of
our professional lives'" ( Robson 2002: 536)
I believe that the answer to this
question lies in Schön’s understanding of practitioner knowledge, which as I
noted above he situates within her commitment to her ‘appreciative system and
overarching theory’. Most talk-back results in an evaluation. Many creative
writers, for example, spend many hours reading and redrafting work, changing a
word here, a word there and noting the effect of these changes on the overall
piece. Many of these writers believe they can ‘polish’ their work using this
recursive editorial process. On occasions, however, the talk-back from practice
is unassimilatable. In extreme cases
this kind of talk-back overturns the practitioner’s whole appreciative system.
I would argue that the key difference between ‘research’ and ‘reflective practice’ lies in what the researcher-practitioner does next - after having felt the full shock of this experience.
Do they continue to regard the situation in the light of their previous understanding? Or - Do they find some way of re-conceiving their appreciative system?
This latter course might involve an
intuitive or shamanistic approach to the problem. Or it might involve the
practitioner conducting some kind of systematic enquiry that might allow them
to come to a new understanding of their situation; to conduct what I now term practice-informing research.
Practice-informing Research
It is my belief that this kind of research
can, and should, take many forms depending on the needs and conditions of the
practitioner involved. In my case I began a long intellectual journey that took
me to the philosophical works of the Bakhtin circle and a new theoretical understanding
of computer-mediated textuality and of my own practice. I believe that this
choice was directed in part by my institution, my supervisor and my own former
educational experience which encouraged me to take an overtly theoretical
approach to such a challenge. I also believe that the wider debate about the
rigour of practice-based degrees has helped to shape the highly theoretical
approach I have adopted. Significantly (for me at least) I believe that this
approach has worked, in that it has allowed me to modify successfully my
practice in the light of the findings of this practice-informing research.
Turning to Bakhtin
My research into computer-mediated
textuality is rooted in the dialogic conception of meaning-making, developed by
a group of Russian thinkers centred on Mikhail Bakhtin. In particular, my
research appropriates their key concepts, namely - the utterance, responsive
understanding, discursive genre (or ‘speech genre’) and addressivity to inform my writing
practice (see Stewart 2003).
In hindsight, I have come to
realize that I turned to Bakhtin in order to appreciate the changes that have
occurred in my practice as a result of the change in medium. To use one of Bakhtin’s
own expressions, dialogism and its terms have provided me with an architectonic
understanding of meaning-making; an understanding with which I have been able
to interpret and evaluate my own work as well as the work of others. The
success of this approach, for me as a practitioner, has been that it has
provided me with a common framework with which to evaluate all my practice –
both my previous work ,writing short stories and poetry, and my current computer-based
projects. It has helped me identify what
is appreciably different, but also to see the continuity of meaning-making in a
subject area that is dominated by the claims of the new. Most interestingly, I
have recently come to realize that my research methodology and my understanding
of this methodology are also standing on the same architectonic base.
Dialogic Thought: Slight Reprise
Dialogic thought describes language
and meaning-making using the metaphor of spoken dialogue, describing it as the
interaction between particular individuals, spatially- and temporally-located
in particular social situations. From this central notion, dialogic thought
sees language and meaning-making as being in a swirling state of becoming that
can never be closed-off or set in stone. There is never any last word on any
subject in dialogic thought. Similarly, in dialogic thought, meaning and value
are described as being neither subjective nor objective, but instead described
by the social concept of inter-subjectivity. Key to understanding this
situational, process-based concept of meaning-making is the concept of responsive understanding. As Bakhtin’s
contemporary Voloshinov notes:-
“meaning belongs
to a word in its position between speakers; that is, meaning is realized only
in the process of active, responsive understanding" (Voloshinov 1973:102).
Utterance, Addressivity and Dialogic Genre
From this term responsive understanding it is also possible
to see the value of another dialogic concept, namely the utterance. In dialogic thought all language is realized in the
form of an utterance. Critically the
utterance, as Voloshinov notes, always “makes response to something and is
calculated to be responded to in turn. It is but one link in a continuous chain
of speech performances." (Voloshinov1973:72). Bakhtin refines this
dialogic notion of an utterance by developing the concept of addressivity. He notes that addressivity is “the quality of turning
to someone” (Bakhtin 1986b:99). It is this act of turning (and of being turned
to) that defines the dialogic utterance, because it is establishes an addressee
(a particular other[s]) who will participate in the creation of the meaning of
the utterance (Leith and Myerson 1989:88). Bakhtin also notes that the
addressor always takes “into account possible responsive reactions” of the
reader-participant (Bakhtin 1986b:94) when constructing their utterance. This
means that the addressor seeks to anticipate
the responses of their audience. To quote my own paper:
“It is important,
therefore, to note that addressivity
is a highly-charged recursive relationship. The author-participant is never
free from their audience in this model of understanding because ‘anticipation’
forms the vital mechanism by which the social situation establishes the basic
structure of their utterance.” (Stewart 2003)
The addressivity of
any utterance, Bakhtin argues, means that language is always stratified
(Bakhtin 1981a:288) and subject to social forces that produce this
stratification (Bakhtin 1981a: 290). He
develops the concept of the speech genre to describe the effects of this social
stratification of language. He notes:-
“When we select
words in the process of constructing an utterance, we by no means always take
them from the system of language in their neutral, dictionary form. We usually
take them from other utterances, and mainly from utterances that are kindred to
ours in genre, that is, in theme, composition, or style. Consequently, we
choose words according to their generic specifications. A speech genre is not a
form of language, but a typical form of utterance.”(Bakhtin 1986b:87)
It is important to
note that speech-genres are constantly being formed. They are waxing and
waning, fusing together with other speech genres and being abandoned as the
social situation changes. In a classical example of Bakhtinian thought, they
are always in a state of becoming. It is
also important to note that they are not universally available to every
speaker. They are learnt and maintained through social dialogue.
The Dialogic Genres of Research and
Practice
For Bakhtin, the
concept of speech genre was able to cover the full range of language
activities. He recognised that literary and philosophical works possess key
differences from spoken dialogue, but he also noted that they “are by nature
the same kind of units of speech communication” (Bakhtin 1986b:75). In my paper
I critiqued this notion and suggested they be better understood as being
stratified into dialogic genre, a
dialogic concept also that recognizes explicitly the materiality of an utterance
(Stewart 2003).
However, using this
slightly revised notion of the utterance, I would argue that a piece of creative
writing and an academic research paper, such as this one, are best understood
as utterances, and like all other utterances they gain their meaning when they are
subject to an act of responsive understanding by an appropriate reader-participant.
In this Bakhtinian view, meaning-making is deemed to have occurred when the
addressor’s utterance is appropriately addressed so that it can be understood
to be as representative of the appropriate dialogic genre. In other words, this
academic paper can be understood to be so because it has been addressed in such
a way that you, my dear academic reader, recognize and then answer it as such.
I believe that this insight is important for understanding the dual responsibilities placed upon academic creative writers. For, despite bearing the name of the same author, their two utterances will have to be addressed in two rather different manners. This is important, in turn, because it recognizes the fact that a creative work and a research paper are likely to be understood as members of two different dialogic genres; genres that are separated by the differing social pressures that being brought to bear on ‘creative’ and ‘academic’ writing. A Creative Writing Researcher has, therefore, to be trained explicitly to fulfil two roles – Academic and Writer. This is duality is particularly apparent when preparing for final examination, for unlike a traditional student of the arts (who has one very large hump to get over) a creative writing thesis presents an intellectual landscape that is more like a camel, with two large humps for the student to climb over.
Bakhtin and the Researcher-as-Instrument
The dialogic notion of
meaning-making as an inter-subjective activity socially-positioned in concrete
time and space also provides a basis for understanding and developing the researcher-as-instrument research method
noted in flexible-design social research above. Interestingly, Bakhtin actually
identified a similar concept in one of his late notes when he observes that:
"The
experimenter constitutes part of the experimental system (in microphysics). One
might say, likewise, that the person who participates in understanding
constitutes part of the understood utterance." ( Bakhtin
1986a:123)
Bakhtin then explores briefly this
‘dialogic’ conception of a researcher by asserting: -
“The person who
understands (including the researcher himself) becomes a participant in the
dialogue, although on a special level (depending on the area of understanding
or research)." (Bakhtin 1986a:125)
I believe that my apprenticeship as
a researcher can be best understood as a systematic attempt to achieve this ‘special
level’ of understanding; to be, as it were, recognized as a welcomed
participant in a particular academic conversation. In my case study below I set
out the activities I undertook in order to be able to make this claim.
A Dialogic view of an Original Contribution
Knowledge
The concept of ‘original contribution’ is highly problematic for a Creative Writing Methodology rooted in dialogic thought. All utterances are unique, and in their own small way they all make a contribution to their milieu (even as they are judged worthless rubbish and thrown in the bin). At the same time they can all be understood to be derived from the utterances made by others. For as Voloshinov notes: -
“Any utterance -
the finished, written utterance not excepted -makes
response to something and is calculated to be responded to in turn. It is but
one link in a continuous chain of speech performances” (Voloshinov 1973:72)
Following on from the arguments above I would argue
that a researchers working in the arts are being required to make an ‘acknowledged’
contribution to knowledge in their field. In the case of the Creative Writing
Researcher they are being required to do so in two different socially-stratified
contexts.
Firstly, their practice will be accepted as making a contribution when it anticipates the expectations of an expert practitioner. Secondly their thesis/exegesis will be accepted as such when it anticipates the expectations of a leading academic in the field. These two dialogic genres do not, necessarily, have to be so stratified that one individual can not make both of these judgements, however, it is likely that in most instances the Creative Writing Researcher will be faced by different expectations and they will have to be educated to speak and write competently in these two different dialogic genres. This situation also raises questions for institutions about how they assess supervisor and examiner competence. I humbly suggest that the candidate and institutions’ needs might well be best served by a well-chaired panel of examiners with differing and well-defined competencies.
An Aside: The Value of Heteroglossia
This twin
competence of the practitioner-researcher is not all bad, however, as it give
rise to an experience of what Bakhtin calls heteroglossia. Michael Holquist defines heteroglossia as “a way of conceiving the
world as made up of a roiling mass of languages.”(Holquist1990:69). In this instance,
I believe it is quite productive to conceive of the languages of the
researcher-practitioner as a ‘roiling mass’ of two different socially-charged
speech genres. The researcher-practitioner is in a series of dialogues in which
she is required to fashion an answer. When I am being optimistic I can see that
there is the real possibility of a researcher-practitioner developing a productive
dialogic relationship between her two roles. In fact, a researcher-practitioner
can act as an effective translator between the communities of theorists and
practitioners. However, given the work-load already being placed upon
post-graduates it is not hard to see why researcher-practitioners do not always
relish this position.
Do I have to do this?
It is not surprising, therefore, that
it is a common complaint amongst many creative writing students that writing an
accompanying thesis is an unnecessary extra imposition. For example in 1998 PhD
student Gayline Perry noted:
"I am
writing a novel as the major component of a doctoral thesis. The other
component is a mandatory exegesis drawing upon literary theory that must relate
in some way to my novel. The exegesis seems distant from the processes of
writing …….. an anomaly in my personal concept of
creative writing.” (Perry 1998)
She then argues that:-
"To make a
critical exegesis compulsory for a creative writer is to privilege one kind of
writing over another." (Perry 1998)
When I first began my research degree I held very similar (though somewhat ruder) views about the exegesis. However, I would now counter my own line-of-thought by arguing that submitting a creative work on its own is also a form of privileging; one that is in danger of re-introducing ‘masculinist’ notions of individual genius into creative writing research. At best, presenting ‘the work’ in this way, without contributing to its context, is to return to a New Critical ‘words-on-the-page’ stance, which I believe would be wholly inadequate for dealing with the subtleties of my computer-mediated practice.
Likewise ,
in focussing down solely on the product, there is also a danger of disregarding
the real contribution that a creative writer can make to the wider theoretical
and critical discourses that are on-going in literary and cultural studies.
This is hardly a new role for writing practitioners, for as both Gerard Genette
(Genette 1997) and Nigel Krauth (Krauth 2002) record there is a long tradition
of creative writers, such as Henry James and Vladimir Nabakov, providing valuable
exegesis or playful pseudo-exegesis of their works.
I would argue, therefore, that the
PhD holder needs to embrace the notion that she is being licensed to perform
two roles within a socially-constructed academia (and to relish the chance to
change things in both camps). This does not mean she has to abandon her
critique of the institutions and its discourse, of course. A dialogic approach,
for example, may produce a productive sense of heteroglossia which challenges both
the hegemony of traditional academic discourse, while at the same time also
challenging the heroic claims of autonomous creative authorship that still clings
insidiously to the practices of creative writing.
Bakhtin’s view of Philosophical Discourse
It is worth noting, while rehashing
my own mental debate about the role of the exegesis in a creative writing
research programme, the value that Bakhtin placed on creative and academic
writing. For despite being trained as a philosopher, he regularly argued
against privileging philosophical modes of writings. Instead he lionized the
novelistic prose of authors such as Dostoevsky. For Bakhtin, the novel was the
ultimate form for realizing heteroglossia. In his seminal essay ‘Discourse in
the Novel’ he noted:-
"in the novel, literary language possesses an organ for
perceiving the heterodox nature of its own speech. Heteroglossia-in-itself
becomes, in the novel and thanks to the novel, heteroglossia-for itself”
(Bakhtin 1981a: 400)
However, despite his life-long love
affair with the novel Bakhtin continued to write essays. By his actions alone,
he indicates that this general form was adequate for many of the exegetical
tasks he undertook. Having said this, it is also important to note that the
style of Bakhtin’s essays is quite removed from the typical univocal thesis
described by Blair et al. For example, when I first confronted Bakhtin’s later writings I found myself reading them in the
manner of a prose poem, making associative rather than logical leaps between
ideas. As Michael Gardiner notes Bakhtin’s works:-
"are often so dense and multi-levelled - in a word, dialogic - that one should be wary of taking them at face value" (Gardiner 1992: 180)
For myself, I do not delude myself that I am a Bakhtin. My thesis, like this paper, it is suitably addressed so that it can be mistaken for a ‘traditional’ thesis. This is a strategic choice, as I believe that my computer-mediated creative work is challenging enough and will provide my institution with endless opportunities for worry.
An Example of Bakhtinian Methodology: A Case Study taken from my Own
Practice-Informing Research
Having set out the theoretical background
to my research methodology I will now set out how they have worked out in
practice. In this case study I will use the theoretical concepts developed
above (Researcher-as –Instrument; Theory
Generation Research; Theory Verification Research; Appreciative System;
Unassimilatable talk back; Practice-informing research) to retrace my own
methodology and so create a theoretical interpretation of my own research and
practice. I will then evaluate my understanding of my methodologies.
I intend to begin my description of
this case study some while before the commencement of my research programme. I
realize that by doing this I run the risk of being anecdotal and of adopting an
unreliable methodology. Unlike now, I do not have accurate research notes for this
period of time. However, I believe that this kind of account marks an exception
to normal academic discourse because traditional academic report styles tend to
suppress the motivational and autobiographical elements of research which often
occur in the murky, emergent phases of research. The usual practice in case
studies, therefore, often hides one of the key aspects of the practice-informing
research.
Practice Problems: Unassimilatable talk-back
The significant moment for my
practice came in the mid-1990s when I set-up my own website and moved some of my
creative work from book- to computer-mediation. One text, in particular set me
thinking. In 1996 I had conducted a three-month long walk around the country of
England and recorded my impression in a text that came to be called this little world (see Stewart 2001). This
account had been conceived as a book-mediated, semi-linear,
semi-autobiographical memoir. Somehow, in a way that I could not explain at the
time, this worked had been changed as a result of what then appeared to be an
innocuous shift to computer-mediation. I became aware (via the questions in
their e-mails) that my readers were dipping into the work, following links,
rather than reading it as a continuous narrative. What did this mean for the
structure of the text? I was intrigued, and I was confused. Reflection-in-action
did not help me as my appreciative system and overarching theory did not allow
me to utilize of the unassimilatable talk-back
I was receiving from the situation.
I continued to write and read
computer-mediated texts over the next eighteen months. I also conducted a
short, informal literature search. Although I discovered a number of
fascinating accounts of these texts (for example see Landow 1997, Aarseth 1997 and Bolter 2001), these theoretical
description also did not make full sense of ‘talk-back’ that I was receiving
from my practical work. They did not
provide me with a sense of my own aesthetic. I kept coming back to the question
of value - What should I be doing with
this new media?
Phase One – The Literature Review and Skills Acquisition
The first phase of my formal
research programme took the form of a number of activity strands that ran
concurrently though 2001-2002.
For completeness, it is also worth
mentioning that at this time I also received some formal education in the form
of supervision tutorials and by attending the research training programme
organized by the University of Luton (covering generic research skills such as
library searches, academic writing, ethics etc.). The common approach in this
early phase of my research programme was to enable myself to be a researcher-as-instrument. I believe now that
I grossly under-estimated what would be involved in this process.
After this initial period of just
over six months, I believed that I had come to an understanding of these texts and
set-out on a first round of theory
verification research, using reflection-on
the-results to investigate my preliminary understandings. To do this, I
implemented two practice-based projects - The
Castle Gardens (see Stewart 2002) and Tomorrow
(see Stewart 2003c), in which I produced work that featured
many of the technological and formal features of computer-mediated texts noted
in my theoretical, literary and practice-based sessions. Significantly, both of these projects produced considerable unassimilatable
talk-back which indicated that I had not yet developed a new appreciative system from either my
practice or with the existing theoretical accounts of computer mediated texts. It
felt to me that my practice and my theoretical work were on two divergent
tracks, heading off in quite different (though interesting) directions.
I came to the realization that I
needed to conduct some practice-informing
research that would allow me to develop a new theoretical conception of computer-mediated
text that would form the basis of an aesthetic appreciation of my practice.
Phase Two – Towards Practice-informing Research
The second phase of my research
began with me conducting an in-depth study of dialogism. As I discussed
earlier, the chief benefit of adopting a dialogic approach was that it
simultaneously gave me an architectonic understanding of meaning-making, a theoretical
approach and a methodological approach to my research. To use a painting
metaphor, dialogism gave me a frame and a canvas on which to paint all the
hither-to disparate phenomena I had been observing.
This application of dialogic theory
to computer-mediated textuality was practice-informing
in this phase because it brought into focus the subject for my research. At the
same time, the dialogic conception of participation gave me a set of
intellectual questions and a methodology with which to re-approach this
subject. It allowed me to begin to interpret and evaluate computer-mediated texts
in a systematic and informing manner. In this phase I was further preparing
myself to perform the function of researcher-as-instrument.
I formalized this process into a
series of Question Sheets, which I would fill-in as I read a new piece of work.
An early example of these sheets, for example asked questions about materiality
such as: -
Subsequently, I began to ask
questions about the rhetorical conditions of the piece.
Finally, I questioned the aesthetic
approaches
This phase then cumulated in me
writing two papers in the summer of 2003 in which I described a dialogic
interpretation and evaluation of certain computer-mediated texts (see Stewart
2003a and Stewart 2003b). The writing of these papers helped me to realize that
questions I was asking of these texts were still rather ill-defined and that I
was still presented with the key challenge of identifying and then embracing the
aesthetic of computer-mediated textuality that has become the central to both
my practice and PhD thesis.
Phase Three – Practice-informing
The obvious test of a practice-informing research programme is whether it does indeed inform practice. In hindsight, I find that the most obvious way to detect this in my own practice is to look for a radical change of approach in my work at a particular point in time that is then followed by a concentrated focus on a new aspect of practice. A particularly enjoyable change of this sort occurred in my practice when I realized that my interest in computer-mediation hinged on the notion of participation described in my theoretical papers.
The next phase of my research program (2003-2004) took the form of a highly-theorized practice that was constructed firstly as Practice-Informing Research and then as Theory Verification Research, involving me researcher-as-instrument. I was fortunate that this phase of my research also coincided with my participation in a project called ‘textlab’, organized by Writer for the Future (see Writer for the Future 2004). Textlab was an excellent experience for me. I found that engaging on a day-to-day basis with other practitioners working in this field enabled me in many ways. It provided me with the kind of practicum described by Schön; with artistic collaborators; and it forced me to rearticulate my ideas about the value of computer-mediated texts in a manner that was interesting to practitioners. I wrote and designed a series of pieces, for example Ontology (Stewart 2004a) and Poeima (Stewart 2004b) in which I was keen to investigate the Bakhtinian notion of addressivity and the participatory rhetoric of computer-mediated textual art. In doing so, I came to see that I valued these texts, and that I could articulate to other practitioners why I valued them. I found myself developing the aesthetic that I sought. I also found myself with very clearly delineated designs for these works. For example, in notes posted on my website to context a version of Poeima, I noted:-
“When I originally worked out the concept for this piece I wanted to give a sense of how meaning-making is an activity rooted in the moment. I also wanted to convey my sense of mystery and marvelling at meaning-making. I feel that the current version comes a little way closer to those ideals.” (Stewart 2004c)
It is my contention that my
research programme was successful because I was able to interpret and evaluate the
talk-back from this practice and produce new work.
Phase Four – Is Anyone listening?
In the current
phase of my research I have been working on my long-awaited utterances in the dialogic
genres of research and practice. In particular, I have been working on the
addressivity of my creative writing and my thesis. I have been attending
conferences, giving papers, showing my work to fellow practitioners, collaborating
with other practitioners and writing my thesis document. I have also been
working on formalizing my understanding of the process that I have been through
over the last three years. This phase I guess will cumulate in the examination
process at the end of this year. I hope it won’t end there, however.
Research Programme: Summary
To summarize, I have been engaged in practice-informing research into computer-mediated textuality. The methodologies I have employed have been mixed, flexible research design – cycles of Theory Generation Research and Theory Verification Research - which uses me, the researcher, as researcher-as-instrument. The outcome of my research has been (I hope):-
Concluding Thoughts
I do not believe that this paper maps
out the only way to be a Creative Writing Researcher. I do, however, believe
that the practice-informing research methodology
I have described, although somewhat fragile in appearance when compared to the
steel certainties of other more ‘scientific’ methodologies, might be of more
use to future researchers than the plate-glass battleship mentioned in my
title.
In many ways this thought reassures me, as I am sure that I will have many more experiences of unassimilatable talk-back as I continue to write using computer media. I believe that I am actually looking forward to this experience, as I have recently come to recognize that my appreciative system is also an exciting, open-ended state of Bakhtinian becoming which is in itself also worthy of study.
Who knows my next doctorate might be in experimental psychology!
Bibliography
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