Research Question, Abstract, Concept Map Stuff, and Bibliography

Final Paper CMAP Analysis and Abstract

CMAP

My map shows me that I have a good sense of fiction’s historical tradition, both with its older roots—Poe’s unity of effect and Henry James’ “The Art of Fiction”—and its newer discourses (Madison Smart Bell, Charles Baxter, Rober Olen Butler). What this map clearly reveals, however, is a lack of texts on the social. Some of the material we have read in class might help me (LeFevre addresses creative writing, for instance), but I obviously have to find rhetorical/theoretical texts that help deepen my understanding of creative writing pedagogy and how the social might fit within such a pedagogy. The Anna Leahy edited text looks promising since it seems to reevaluate the creative writing classroom for the 21^st century.

Abstract

In her book Invention as a Social Act, Karen LeFevre writes, “While literary academicians and fiction writers are often wary of each other, one point on which both camps can agree is to be suspicious of anyone who talks about the need of readers.” LeFevre’s comments are both true and false. On the one hand, creative writing appears to resist the social. Landmark essays on creative writing, such as Frank O’Connor’s “The Lonely Voice,” buttress the notion of the creative artist as a shipwrecked soul, marooned from the rest of society. However, most contemporary literary writers have at least a passing familiarity with theory, as evidenced through the “moves” contemporary writers make or resist: an avoidance of closure, a resistance to epiphany, an embrace of playfulness, a disavowal of symbols, the joyous deconstruction of the author as know-it-all. Literary fiction, then, is deeply indebted to contemporary theory (though literary fiction tries to avoid didacticism). Why then do current notions of creative writing (invention, pedagogy, what-have-you) turn away from recognition of the social? How can the binary of individual artists vs. outside society be breached, made more complex? Thus, my tentative research question is as follows: how can contemporary notions of the “social” fit within a contemporary creative writing pedagogy?

Bibliography

Baxter, Charles. Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction. St. Paul: Graywolf, 1998.

Baxter, Charles, Peter Turchi, eds. Bringing the Devil to his Knees: The Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2001.

Bell, Madison Smart. Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000.

Berlin, James. Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures: Refiguring College English Studies. West Lafayette: Parlor P, 2003.

Butler, Robert Olen. From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction. New York: Grove Press, 2006.

Cixou, Hélène. Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing. New York: Columbia UP, 1994.

Gardner, John. The Art of Fiction. New York: Vintage, 1985.

James, Henry. “The Art of Fiction.” Tales of Henry James: The Texts of the Stories, the Author on His Craft, Background and Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 1984.

Leahy, Anna, ed. Power and Identity in the Creative Writing Classroom: The Authority Project. North Somerset, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2005.

LeFevre, Karen Burke. Invention as a Social Act. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1987.

May, Charles, E, ed. The New Short Story Theories. Athens, OH: Ohio UP, 1994.

O’Connor, Frank. The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story. Hoboken: Melville House,

Poe, Edgar Allen. “The Philosophy of Composition.” Essays and Reviews. Ed. G. Richard Thompson. New York: Library of America, 1984.

---. “The Poetic Principle.” Essays and Reviews. Ed. G. Richard Thompson. New York: Library of America, 1984.

Sparks, Debra. Curious Attractions: Essays on Fiction Writing. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2005.