Writing Politics introduction

There is no single totalizing methodological frame that can serve to unite the diverse analyses in the preceding chapters. The aim of this epilogue is to distil a methods pedagogy from the diverse investigations in the chapters. Operating throughout the book is an aesthetic methodology that draws on aspects of the contentious field that identifies as literary criticism and on philopoetic interventions,-what Cesare Casarino calls (after Deleuze) "interferences"compositional encounters between concepts drawn from philosophical perspectives and experiential moments in literary texts. The methods I use are rooted in the "romantic concept of art criticism," which as Walter Benjamin notes, "stands completely upon epistemological considerations." 1 However, the essayistic feature of the novels central to my analyses-those belonging to the genre historiographic metafiction-are epistemologically distinctive in that the protagonists themselves engage in conceptual interventions. Philopoesis-as-method is thus immanent in the texts as well as outside of them. Such is the case for example in Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, the main text in Chapter 3, in which as I suggested his protagonists, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon are conceptual personae as well as aesthetic subjects. The novel is punctuated by their conceptual interventions-for example when they refer to themselves as "philosophical frigates" and explicitly acknowledge that their survey has them trespassing in the domain of another "civic entity." The expression "aesthetic methods" I am attributing to my investigations carries a complication beyond the observation that the method resides within the texts as well as in my

Modern Philology, 2019

Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie

Ideas about writing and learning to write change over time. Reforms in the teaching of writing show us this. Less visible perhaps are the differences across English-speaking cultures in ideas about language and writing. At times we may be more or less aware of difference as we question or adopt new products of us compositionism; examine-or fail to examine-their utility in Canadian settings; noticeor fail to notice-their introduction into our professional habitats. In this sector, Canada is in a trade-deficit position, but one we are accustomed to and may scarcely recognize. Romy Clark and Roz Ivanic's The Politics of Writing, a powerfully stated analysis of writing in UK contexts, academic and beyond, could move us to calculate our trade-dependence on us compositionism. And, in its bracing unfamiliarity, this book could be incentive to Canadian writing researchers to define more legibly our local principles and policies. In Clark and Ivanic's intellectual universe, reasoning about the teaching of writing occupies a position different from that occupied by North American "composition", with its longstanding if debatable adjacencies to English departments and literary studies. Clark and Ivanic's reasoning about writing is situated between, on the one hand, linguistics-sociolinguistics (as represented by say James Milroy and Lesley Milroy, and as reconceived by Deborah Cameron) and systemicfunctional linguistics-and, on the other hand, Marxist and neo-Marxist social theory-Antonio Gramsci, Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, with contributions from Pierre Bourdieu (a figure now common in North American discussions of writing). Beyond this intellectual axis, and equally influential in their proposals, are salient conditions of British political culture: the expression of neo-conservative principles in the National Curriculum; the role of the British press in

Contemporary Literature, 2008

Art in general and fiction in particular have had close affinities with politics throughout history. When there is a close tie between a narrative fiction and political issues then critics may deem it as "committed fiction". Political fiction is at the crossroads of political science and the art of fiction. And more often than not, novelists are involved with politics but not all of them are dubbed as or even consider themselves to be political novelists. In this article I attempt to investigate political fiction as a distinct genre produced (un)consciously by a range of (politically committed) novelists and critics. The authors discussed in this paper demonstrate dissimilar perspectives on freedom and democracy. Also, regarding political fiction and the responsibility of author, we will see how divergent is the attitudes of critics such as

History Workshop Journal, 2008

Studia Neophilologica

The European Journal of Life Writing, 2020

This reflective essay seeks to question, through my creative practice, methods of writing the history of post-1945 events for a young adult reader. Using creative techniques to add depth to the research, I explore the scope of the future project through a palimpsest diagram as well as poetry, word association and vignettes of my lived experiences. I compare how other creative writers have treated historical narrative in fiction, memoir and drama. Building on schoalrly debate on the role of life writing in historical processes, both source materials and historiography, the essay analyses the scholarship on postmodern representations of the recent past in literature, including personalised life writing and autobiography as well as novels. Problems jostle for attention: blank spaces of the historical records, unreliable memories, competing definitions of truth, Western class-bound identity and twenty-first century retrospection. My conclusions suggest that novelistic and lyrical tech...