Research through practice: a reply to Paul Dawson

Abstract

This paper is a polemical response to Paul Dawson’s recent article ‘Creative writing and postmodern interdisciplinarity’. It argues, contra Dawson, that it is practice and not pedagogy that is the proper object of study for an area of creative writing. Moreover, it is not sufficient for academic writers to forge a body of critical knowledge through research on practice, but also a question of forging a body of experiential knowledge through practice and about process. There is a pressing need for us to think our subjects differently, to create new paradigms and methodologies, to articulate what it means to understand the world and the text from the ground of production.