Aside from its main mission to establish a relationship between academic and business discourses, this year’s Symposium has, in my view, peripherally addressed another notorious bifurcation of academic and creative writing. Perhaps Peter Elbow’s proposition to ignore audience for some time can be hard to grasp in the context of business letter writing. It does, however, resonate fully with our experience with more expressive writing forms, those that convey a personal voice and in turn strike personal notes in the audience.
Listening to Elbow, I recalled a Q&A session with Orhan Pamuk. To my question whom he imagines as his audience when drafting his autobiography, he quickly responded “myself.” He explained that thinking about potentially disapproving readers would hamper his authenticity and creative effort. Another writer, whose personal journals have been a subject of my scrupulous analysis these days, connected his inability to write truthfully about his life to his typewriter, seeing it as his immediate audience.
But a self-invitation into a room of one’s own, as Virginia Woolf has famously called it, is something we seek also when working on projects less posh than a poetic autobiography (though a psychologist can easily make a case that a dissertation is a piece of autobiography); I’m referring to such prosaic items of academic life as seminar papers, articles, and dissertations. For me, an important take-away from Elbow’s speech was that the process of composition happens in very similar ways for writers engaged in creative and academic projects. Whether one is working on a novel or dissertation, the vocabulary to describe the writing process would be the same, ranging from such romantic concepts as exploration to such terrifying buzz words as writer’s block.
In both cases, receiving effective feedback from, alas, audience, at later stages of the composition process becomes essential as well!
Thanks, Olga. This is a great comment on Elbow…
Beautiful post, Olga. Speaking of “a self-invitation into a room of one’s own,” Elbow also writes, “But we need to learn to write what is true and what needs saying even if the whole world is scandalized. We need to learn eventually to find in ourselves the support which–perhaps for a long time–we must seek openly from others” (Wring with Power, 190).
Interesting post, Olga. I think the question of audience in terms of seminar papers can be downright maddening. It seems silly to imagine you’re writing for the audience of your seminar professor, and your seminar colleagues often don’t read the paper (the prof sometimes doesn’t, either). But writing a seminar paper for “myself” doesn’t seem right, since if I wasn’t particularly jazzed about the seminar itself, why would I hang around to write a decent paper if it’s only for me? (“For the grade” is one possible, but uninspiring, answer.)
I was just having a discussion with a fellow doctoral student in which I referred to my writing of a paper as an attempt to enter the “conversation” already occurring around my topic, language encouraged by more than one professor I’ve known. My friend couldn’t get over the hypocrisy of high-level academics who would refer to a “conversation,” the kind of term that tries to mask/neutralize the cut-throat, out-for-oneself reality of the field. (It’s not a conversation, it’s a snakepit, etc.)
I think he has a point, and yet (perhaps for my own sanity?) I disagree with him…
Coincidentally, I’m procrastinating on writing a seminar paper RIGHT NOW.
I agree, it’s a bit disingenuous for academics to say you’re just entering a ‘conversation’ (my advisor says that, too) with the arguments in a paper or in your dissertation. It’s more like entering a highly contentious debate than a friendly conversation; still it seems that, unlike a debate, no one can stop us from taking a turn at the mic and saying our piece. So to speak.
I really liked your post, Olga wrote, thank you! It’s true, there is a bifurcation there, with academic/creative writing sort of on one side, and business writing on the other — at least when it comes to being able to temporarily forget about the audience. I actually had a lot to say about business writing, drawing on my own past work-life, that I didn’t get to say during the symposium. Maybe I will write a follow-up post about it.
I agree: beautiful and poetic post about the very intricate and inner nature of writing! Peter Elbow wanted to indeed celebrate “the glory” of the inner turn and exploration that inevitably occur while we write with an engaged mind and heart (as opposed, I think, to those moments when writing becomes a superficial thing).
I envy Olga’s chance to ask Orhan Pamuk about his memoir! Istanbul, Memories and the City struck me with its highly personal tone, but I also had the feeling that Pamuk was in “conversation” in his book with his beloved city, as if the primary audience for him were Istanbul “herself.”
Hi,
I must say this is a very nice and informative post Olga, keep sharing the good work in future too. There are standards for Business Writing and Creative Writing etc. In my opinion, these standards make a difference and therefore, should be followed.