Postmodern Factuality

Paging through a textbook in preparation for a class I’m teaching my eye caught a reference. I froze. Can this really be true? Is this really allowed in a textbook? The source is Wikipedia! Now don’t get me wrong, Wikipedia is a great quick reference and I use it often, but it is certainly not trustworthy source. No self-respecting scholar would be caught dead quoting Wikipedia.

Or have trustworthiness and factuality and truth so deteriorated in our postmodern zeitgeist that any source would do. Have facts just become opinions, and all opinions equal? Is the professor speaking about his field of expertise and the freshman speaking about the same field equally quotable sources?

Don’t get me wrong, I am a child of postmodernity, a Generation Xer par excellence; I feel strangely at home in this fragmented zeitgeist, but I also value the knowledgeable over the laity. All narratives are not equal.

To D or not to D

I was speaking to a friend (a doctor and lecturer at my university) the other day and he mentioned two things he regret. Firstly he regrets not doing his PhD thesis in English. And secondly, not doing it somewhere else.

And then it hit me, I too have done all three my degrees at the same place. Am I not restricting myself to certain points of view and set ways of thinking? So I consulted with a couple of professors, telling them of my concern and intention to do my PhD somewhere else. And all of them affirmed my concern and agreed that it would be beneficial to do it somewhere else.

So yesterday I went to tell my promoter that I'm considering to quit my PhD and take it up at another university. She expressed her sadness in losing me as a postgraduate, but said: "In the end it is your decision; it is your time; it is your money." And then we discussed some possibilities both locally and abroad.

I'm not going to make an overly haste decision. I will give myself a while to scout the options - and seeing as I'm relocating within a couple of days, I probably shouldn't be making any rash decisions just yet.

I'm looking for a university that (1) has a program for Creative Writing at PhD level, (2) caters for both academic and practiced based research, and (3) will allow me to study telematically (i.e. distance education, via email or other media). Any suggestions?

In the [science] but not of the [science]...

For about a year I was part of a creativity project called Tracking Creative Creatures. The purpose of the project was to collect data on the creative process. I was invited to contribute as an artist, which entailed the creation of artworks inspired by predetermined stimuli. My contribution also had to include a log of the creative process as I experienced it.

As a scholar, I was also invited to make an academic contribution. An academic journal decided it will focus one full publication to this project. And so I made up my mind to write an article for this publication, on my own creative process while involved in the project. Being an academic journal a mere subjective vomiting of ideas would not be accepted. I therefore need a scientific model to give structure and credence to the article.

My instinctive thought was to use Semiotics – the study of signs. But after some thought the study of Memetics stood out as an excellent model to explore the creative process. Memetics basically study the propagation of ideas, known as memes, from mind to mind (in the same way as genes propagate from organism to organism) and their evolution. This models fits ideally with the Tracking Creative Creatures project.

The projects started with the imaginary creatures of a young boy who described them to his artist father who in turn made sketches of the creatures. These sketches were given to artists from different disciplines and asked to use the sketches as inspiration to create own artworks. The original memes, developed in the mind of a five year old boy, propagated through his father’s sketches to different artists, where they mutated and evolved. The memes competed for survival. The “strongest” ones were chosen by the artist and ended up as artworks. The “weaker” means went extinct.

As you can see, Memetics provides an excellent metaphor for studying the distribution and evolution of ideas as it occurs in the creative process.

And here is my dilemma. Memetics, inspired by Darwinism, is fundamentally an atheistic science, developed by two outspoken atheists (Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet), and used to promulgate Darwinian ideas, specifically for anti-religious means.

And here I am, a theist, sceptical of the supposedly infallible Theory of Evolution, wanting to use an evolutionary theory to explain my own study. Aren’t I being a hypocrite? I undeniably disagree with what Memetics stands for, specifically as it is used within evolutionary biology. Yet I wish to exploit it as a metaphor to discuss my own work.

We know that the Apostle Paul used the literature and philosophy of the day to appeal to his audience. But to what effect? Afterwards he complained that he will henceforth preach Jesus and the Cross only. I’m not sure if using the Apostle Paul as a case study is applicable to my dilemma. Paul was concerned with preaching the gospel. I’m trying to write a non-religious article concerning creativity and the transfer and development of ideas.

Jesus prayed that Christians should be in the world but not of the world. How am I to be in the science, but not of the science?

Real victories start at home. Real defeats too.

It happened on Friday. I slugged out of bed at around 10am. The demigod Chaos had made nest in my apartment again. Socks and other smelly objects mingled with notes, unmarked papers, trash, half read books, unsorted DVDs, dirty dishes, and I lay strewn about.

“It’s Friday.” Fridays are supposed to be preparation day. I’m supposed to use it to exorcise Chaos from my space and prepare for the blessed peace and orderliness of Sabbath. But on this Friday there is an important post-graduate workshop which I need to attend. The topic is “boundaries and liminality”. And since I am planning to commence with a PhD I guess it would be good to show my face.

I dress up: White button-up shirt with striking blue tie, enveloped by a black waistcoat to hide the creased shirt, formal pants, black shoes, and black framed glasses to match. The effect will work. It will say “young, smart and confident”. It’s a lie. Today I do not feel confident. I feel like a loser, unsure about my future and my place in it.

I pad myself with sun block, mount my bicycle and leave Chaos home alone. Maybe he will have mercy on me, get bored and leave before I get back.

The workshop started hours ago. I try to sneak in, but everyone is too happy at the disturbance. It gives them something to do. It breaks the monotony of listening to one academic blah-blah after another. They all look at me. Wait for me to find a seat. Some pretentiously frown at my complete disregard for timeliness or disrespect at unsettling a highly qualified scholar in the middle of her highly academic discourse.

The literary professor seems untouched by my fashionable entrance. She quotes someone: “Die dood spreuk tog vanself.” [Death speaks for itself.] The title of her presentation is “Still lives and the still life of death; voices and silences in Memorandum by Marlene van Niekerk and Adriaan van Zyl”. If death speaks for itself why such a long discourse about it, I ponder.

Next up is an old classmate. She reports on her PhD. It is about Oliver Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm. (Schreiner is probably best known for his quote: "There was never a great man who had not a great mother.") She quotes passages from the book and I’m struck by “only the milk bushes, like old hags, pointed their shrivelled fingers heavenward, praying for the rain that never came.”

And so it goes.

Hours go by.

We are fed.

More hours go by.

We listeners are confronted with death, nostalgia, vengeance, banality, gender issues, Apartheid. . .

“What does it all mean?” I ask myself. “In the greater scheme of things, what does this matter?” I’m frustrated with the futility of it all. “Are we changing the world? Does this help anyone? Is this of value to anybody, except us handful scholars sitting like mythological gods on a mountain, removed from reality – our only interaction with it is through the arts.”

And then, everyone is finished. There is actually some time left and I’m put on the spot. I have nothing to say about my own future studies. “Tell us about your master’s degree.”

I stand up, armed with a white board marker.

I start by explaining the difference between Literature and Creative Writing. “Literary scholars are like connoisseurs,” I flatter them. “They taste the food, dissect the flavours, discuss the qualities and write critical reviews.” I smile. “Creative Writers are like the chefs. Both the connoisseurs and the chefs work with food. They just approach it from different sides.” They nod their heads in understanding. The analogy has caught its prey.

“The creation and representation of a postmodern character identity in prose” – the title of my dissertation. I explain my research and methodology on the white board and begin a flamboyant discussion concerning the creation and representation of character, postmodernity and pop culture. I answer questions eloquently and at length. I throw my knowledge of Postmodern Identity and Creative Writing around like candy to a crowd. I make references to Nobel prize winner, J M Coetzee, to Frank Miller’s film adaptation of his comic books, to the imago’s in Dogville, to the stereotypes in The Simpsons and American Dad, to the blend of classical and contemporary music in The Matrix, to postmodern subcultures, to narrative layers, to E M Forster.

And I hear my alter-ego cry out: “What does it all mean?!”

I return home, uplifted with the endorphin rush of academic acknowledgment.

Chaos awaits me. Valiantly I put up a fight. I start in the kitchen. I wash the dishes and wipe the stove. But Chaos’ martial experience outwits me long before I reach my room.

“You think your small victory can dissuade me?” He asks. “I’m not a scholar persuaded by rhetoric. I’m not overcome by white board markers. I’m not subdued by analogies. I’m not awed by your knowledge of Postmodernism. I am the Cause of Postmodernism.”

And that . . . that was Friday.