[Cwgrad-announcements] Interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed re: Creative Writing programs

[Stephanie Hammer]

thanks!  as an, um "recovering museless pedant" I think the argument is persuasive and thought provoking!  (-:  sh

"A major irritation, a most stern and ruthless activity without question or answer, a three-card trick, a necessity. A necessity to what?  The necessity to _say_."  Pinter on Beckett.  


---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed,  1 Jul 2009 09:19:28 -0700 (PDT)
>From: cwgrad-announcements-bounces at lists.ucr.edu (on behalf of <rrussin at ucr.edu>)
>Subject: Re: [Cwgrad-announcements] Interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed re: Creative Writing programs  
>To: "cwhitney" <chuck.whitney at ucr.edu>
>Cc: cwgrad-announcements at lists.ucr.edu
>
>Hi Chuck--
>
>Yes, Andrew (I think) turned me on to this New Yorker piece--it's really terrific. I particularly liked the analysis of how programs have affected/been affected by multi-cultural efforts, as well as the spurious insistence in some quarters on personal "authenticity."
>
>It's well worth reading for the whole program, actually.
>
>Thanks!
>
>Robin Russin
>Associate Professor & Graduate Advisor
>Department of Theatre
>University of California, Riverside
>Riverside, CA 92521
>(951) 827-2707
>(213) 949-1061 cel
>robin.russin at ucr.edu
>
>"Deserve's got nothin' to do with it." - William Munny in "Unforgiven," written by David Webb Peoples
>
>
>---- Original message ----
>>Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 09:01:17 -0700
>>From: cwhitney <chuck.whitney at ucr.edu>  
>>Subject: Re: [Cwgrad-announcements] Interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed re: Creative Writing programs  
>>To: <rrussin at ucr.edu>
>>Cc: cwgrad-announcements at lists.ucr.edu
>>
>>   Robin:  Did you see the Louis Menand review-essay of
>>   McGurl's book in the New Yorker?
>>
>>     http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/06/08/090608crat_atlarge_menand?currentPage=all
>>
>>   D. Charles Whitney, Professor & Chair
>>   Department of Creative Writing, 4159 INTS
>>   U. of CA, Riverside   Riverside CA 92521
>>   951.827.6076     FAX 951.827.3619
>>   On Jun 30, 2009, at 2:25 PM, <rrussin at ucr.edu>
>>   wrote:
>>
>>     I won't copy the whole thing here, but a few
>>     paragraphs in case you want to check it out:
>>
>>     By JENNIFER HOWARD
>>
>>     Complaints about writing programs are legion.
>>     Critics — there have been many over the years
>>     — tend to reach for sausage-factory imagery to
>>     sum up their objections. Stuff raw writing into
>>     one end, they say, and out the other comes a
>>     string of literary product in whatever shape
>>     happens to be in fashion. In the 1980s, for
>>     instance, minimalism à la Raymond Carver was all
>>     the rage, and writers who emerged from M.F.A.
>>     programs were often accused of being Carver
>>     wannabes. Even those who look with toleration on
>>     writing programs tend to believe that you can
>>     teach writers but you can't teach people how to
>>     write, as the saying goes.
>>
>>     Enter Mark McGurl, an associate professor of
>>     English at the University of California at Los
>>     Angeles. McGurl comes to the defense of writing
>>     programs from an unexpected angle: the literary
>>     critic's corner. His new book, The Program Era:
>>     Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing
>>     (Harvard University Press), makes a claim that is
>>     likely to surprise people on both sides of the
>>     debate: "This book argues that the rise of the
>>     creative-writing program stands as the most
>>     important event in postwar American literary
>>     history," he writes in the very first sentence.
>>
>>     ...
>>
>>     Colleagues with Ph.D.'s now come to her asking for
>>     advice on how to make their nonfiction work more
>>     creative, while she and others on the creative
>>     side have grown comfortable publishing more
>>     academic papers, in part because they too must
>>     satisfy tenure requirements. "Everybody's
>>     influencing everybody else," Pollack reports. In
>>     graduate classes, "there's a lot of mingling going
>>     on" between critics and creative writers.
>>
>>     If McGurl is living proof that a literary critic
>>     — "a museless pedant," as he jokingly says in
>>     The Program Era — can treat creative-writing
>>     programs with respect, even admiration, is the
>>     world ready to set aside the sausage-factory
>>     debate? The university may be the best place to
>>     move that conversation forward. Writing and
>>     publishing have grown decentralized as the power
>>     of New York wanes. Pollack hopes that more people
>>     will give creative-writing programs credit for
>>     "keeping the flame alive a little bit" and back
>>     off the attack. "How can it hurt the world if
>>     there are as many people as possible spending two
>>     years reading and writing?" she asks. "What is the
>>     harm of that?"
>>
>>     Robin Russin
>>     Associate Professor & Graduate Advisor
>>     Department of Theatre
>>     University of California, Riverside
>>     Riverside, CA 92521
>>     (951) 827-2707
>>     (213) 949-1061 cel
>>     robin.russin at ucr.edu
>>
>>     "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it." - William
>>     Munny in "Unforgiven," written by David Webb
>>     Peoples
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
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>>     Cwgrad-announcements at lists.ucr.edu
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>
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