Theoretical Chops - 2nd response

Theoretical Chops

Lead to Improved Workshops…?

Theoretical chops – does one need them in the conventional creative writing workshop? In If The Shoe Fits, Katharine Haake has argued passionately in the affirmative. And not just because we might end up having to teach theory as she did. Theory, she says, belongs in the workshop because to know it, simply stated, is to be set free. And because knowing something about the act of writing – or at least what theorists believe the act of writing is - or language more precisely, something about which they tend to disagree more often than not - in addition to the desire to engage in it can lead to the discovery of other “modes of existence of a discourse”, with some of it being perhaps “explicitly experimental”. If what is meant by this is anything other than the written word – or anything else in addition to it – would seem to give rise to other self-imposed limitations: how many pairs of shoes would you need in circulation to reach a reasonably sized audience?

However, the gates were well guarded at the time Haake wrote this essay, already sixteen years ago, and I suspect they still are since nothing changes overnight in the hallowed halls of academe. In fact, the article written by Louis Menand for the June 8, 2009 edition of the New Yorker strongly suggests that things have not changed. He describes the creative writing workshop as “a combination of ritual scarring and 12-on-one group therapy”. And I wonder if the lack of instruction in which some “body of knowledge is transmitted by means of a curricular script” doesn’t in some way resonate with the need to incorporate the study of theory in the creative workshop according to Haake. It would appear today that no progress has been made in the direction of alternative goals/futures for creative writing students other than that of teacher and author. What I hear fellow workshoppers talk about primarily is publishing (and making a lot of money at it), and teaching. So far, there has been no theory. On the other hand we have this course in theories of creativity. My understanding, however, is that the latter is not a required course, but rather an elective. Unless misinformed, what is required are four workshops and four literature courses. So I jump ahead of myself here and ponder whether Haake was writing in a dark institutional wormhole. Or have there been iterations of her workshop model – a hybrid of theory and writing practice?

Understanding theory imparts power. The keepers of the domain (or status quo) have the power, and although power is indiscriminate when it comes to outstretched hands, those who hold it will do all possible to maintain it. It is, she writes, the “will to power, authority, and mastery that drives the most zealous of us”. Yet, how does the creative writing contingency get out from under the thumb of those who don’t even recognize the existence of the writer as being “central to their study”? Quite frankly, this seems an impossible posture in the first place, not to recognize the thing that generates food for thought -or wages. Here (and elsewhere), I’m not sure if Haake’s tendency towards high wit doesn’t sometimes obscure the issue she is seeking to enlighten. True enough she says that one way of moving towards the claiming of at least their share of the power, teachers of creative writing/creative writers (who generally double as teachers), should stop throwing polemic darts from a defensive posture and become “more informed about the work of [their] colleagues”, and cultivate a “spirit of interdisciplinary curiosity”. She suggests we might “gain a new and more playful access” to theory and to writing if as writers we let go of our sense of outrage and bruised egos and adopt “a sense of irony, humor, and perspective about our own activities” (she appears here to have taken her own advice).

Haake expressed major concern in the increase in graduate programs in creative writing, which inevitably leads to the need for more undergraduate programs in order to generate more creative writing teaching positions. This growth cannot go on forever, she states. No doubt. To refer to the Menand article, the AWP currently has more than twenty-five thousand members and today there are well over eight hundred degree programs, thirty-seven of which award the Ph.D., whereas there were only seventy-nine such programs back when the founder of the organization, Verlin Cassill, threw in the towel (1983) because creative writers had become, in his opinion, corrupted by the academic demands of publish or perish. Looking back, it becomes clear that Haake seems to have been trying to weave magic in the middle of a maelstrom in which we still appear to be caught up.

And what might the door prize be if we were to steal some of the fire? In addition to acquiring the ability to control one’s environment, finding out that there might be methodologies other than the creative workshop, which has become synonymous with teaching creative writing, and other “modes of existence of a discourse” to discover from within. Learning to theorize from the student’s perspective, Haake writes (p.91) “even very simple ways, the ‘supplementary’ nature of language and writing gives students a framework within which to break old bad writing habits, and it doesn’t take high post-structuralist (Derrida) scholarship to teach them this”. Sure, the elusive and abstract nature of theory turns it into a bristly cactus. On the bright side, however, teachers of creative writing don’t have to become theoretical virtuosi. Haake assure us that she herself is not.

Haake, admittedly, asked many questions at the outset, assuring us she did not have all the answers, and touched on some gnarly concepts, using, in the process, all three of what she terms the major discourses – critical, theoretical and creative. She lays it all out: “You could call theory (i.e., the master discourse) jargon-laden, or you could call it plain bad writing…but I think the functional principle that sustains the stylistic eccentricities of theory is, again, one of power. Theoretical texts, more often than not, work to position the reader as submissive to the will of the master theorist/writer” (p.86). When I read this I was immediately transported back to when I was last in graduate school. I can remember specifically having to read Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roland Barthes, among others. In spite of how long ago, I distinctly remember having to read paragraphs over and over, the concepts sometimes so abstract as to slip away from comprehension as fast as they had arrived, each time making little progress in understanding the meaning of familiar and unfamiliar words, expressions and turns of phrases – this happened with Barthes more so than Lévi-Strauss - and wondering why they wrote in a manner that seemed deliberately contrived to keep the reader at bay. Yet, having been ‘forced’ to submit to the demands of the department, I plowed through monumental works such as Anthropologie Structurale I & II, and Le Degré Zéro de L’écriture – now in the “phallocentric” halls of fame no doubt - to be inspired to write a dissertation on the myth of the French Revolution because I came to look at history/past reality in a completely different light.

As compelled as I felt to do so, it was nevertheless a real challenge to respond to Haake’s dense essay. Although feeling inadequate to the task of explaining why, I tend to be in agreement with her complexly woven argument. Perhaps creative writing per se cannot be taught, but theory or theories behind it can. Perhaps we cannot teach a student how to write better, but we can help them understand “flow” so that they will come to enjoy playing with language in all its iterations, to enjoy creating for the sake of creating and not for the need to communicate.

I think about the diversity in our theories of creativity class: a young Asian man in a wheelchair for whom English appears to be a second language; a black man who may be a little more mature than I initially thought; a young white man; a 32 year old Latina; six white women ranging in age from early twenties to thirty; and myself, a black woman, representing a demographic not often encountered in a classroom in terms of age and education. There is at least one Catholic, at least one atheist, only children, children from large families, straight and queer folks. Someone amongst us might well have a learning disability we cannot see, or whose learning style does not conform to the ‘norm. In our midst is bound to be someone of ‘great’ talent who might not ‘succeed’ as author and/or educator, someone of ‘mediocre’ ability who just might because she will do the equivalent of Haake’s mediocre hyperfiction shoe-writing student – try harder and/or have an epiphany, but only after being fed a bit of theory to free up the mind for the all important flow or trance.