Fictocriticism
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Contents |
Introduction
Fictocriticism is a style of writing which uses different writing styles, like fiction, theory and criticism in the one text. It is writing that is creatively presented although theoretically grounded. Creative writing and cultural/critical theory are "juxtaposed or merged" (Smithh 2005). Fictocriticism developed "out of a tradition of liberating criticism from its parasitical dependence on literature" (Dawson 2005).
History
Fictocriticism is influenced a lot by the work of Barthes and Derrida because they too theorise the "collapse of generic boundaries" and blur the distinctions between literature and criticism (Dawson 2005). This style of writing has a strong history in feminism. Feminist fictocriticism can be interpreted as "an attempt to surprise the paternalistic voices of theory in action, to unveil them and reveal them for the partial rather than the universal view they in fact represent" (Gibbs 2005).
It emerged in Australia during the 1990s "partly as a response to the growth of creative writing programmes within the university system, and the need to find a productive way of bringing together creative and academic approaches to textuality" (Smith 2005). Fictocriticism made it's way to universities through women's courses and then through creative writing courses (Gibbs 1997) .
Fictocriticism in Cultural Studies
Fictocriticism "changes and challenges" what scholarly and academic work is (Schlunke & Brewster 2005). It reveals the often overlooked fact in academic work, that choices have been made in the content we write about and how we write about it. In writing in a fictocritical style we acknowledge that our writing is a "textual performance", just like any other style of writing.
Fictocriticism is concerned "both with producing and destabalising the effect of 'presence'" (Robb 2001).
Content
Fictocriticism presents the political as personal. Writing in this style "wants to turn and touch its listeners and readers and wants to feel their touch back" (Schlunke & Brewster 2005).
This writing style embraces "mixed=genre writing, discontinuous prose and linguistic play" (Smith 2005). Quotations often feature quite a bit in fictocritical work (Smith 2005).
Audience
Because fictocriticism is "multi-focal" it "hopes to capture something of the emerging mix of new humanities" (Schlunke & Brewster 2005). It often crosses multiple genres in the one text, therefore enabling many different people with different interests to get something meaningful out of it.
Effect
Fictocriticism has a double effect in that "it creates the critical text as something other than a hermeneutical exercise" because it crosses boundaries with fiction, and also because "the critical text can be used to do something other than explication (Nettelbeck 1998). This is because a new kind of text is generated because there is no filter through which the primary text is read.
Performative Fictocriticism
A fictocritical approach can be found in the 'performative' new media landscape, such as that referred to in 'Performing The Network' by Miranda and Neumark.
References
Dawson, P. (2005). Creative writing and the new humanities, Routledge.
Gibbs, A. (1997). Bodies of Words: Feminism and Fictocriticism–Explanation and Demonstration, TEXT.
Gibbs, A. (2005). "Fictocriticism, Affect, Mimesis: engendering differences, TEXT, 9.1." Online journal http://www. gu. edu. au/school/art/text/april05/gibbs. htm.
Nettelbeck, A. (1998). Notes Toward an Introduction, in: (Eds) H. Kerr & A. Nettelbeck, The Space Between: Australian women writing fictocritcism (Perth: University of Western Australia Press).
Smith, H. (2005). The Writing Experiment: Strategies for Innovative Creative Writing, Allen & Unwin.
Smith, Hazel. 'The Erotics of Gossip: Fictocriticism, Performativity, Technology' September 2005
Potts, John. 'Mobile Media/Public Spaces' SCAN: Journal of Media Arts Culture
Robb, S. (2001). Fictocritical Sentences, University of Adelaide, Dept. of English.
Schlunke, K. and A. Brewster (2005). "We Four: Fictocriticism Again." Continuum: Journal of Media &# 38; Cultural Studies 19(3): 393-395.
Sone, Yugi. e-Performance: Post-disciplinary contexts and theorisation SCAN: Journal of Media Arts Culture
