Writing academic texts differently : intersectional feminist methodologies and the playful art of writing

253 Pages·2014·1.609 MB·English

by  Nina Lykke, Anne Brewsrer, Kathy Davis, Redi Koobak, Sissel Lie

Writing Academic Texts Differently
This edited volume combines cutting-edge research on feminist and intersec-
tional writing methodologies with explorations of links between academic
and creative writing practices. Contributors discuss what it means for aca-
demic writing processes to explore intersectional in-between spaces between
monolithic identity markers and power differentials such as gender, race,
ethnicity, class, sexuality and nationality. How does such a frame change
academic writing? How does it make it pertinent to explore new syner-
gies between academic and creative writing? In answer to these questions,
the book offers theories, methodologies and political and ethical consider-
ations, as well as refl ections on writing strategies. Suggestions for exercises,
developed against the background of the contributors’ individual and joint
teaching practices, will inspire readers to engage in alternative writing prac-
tices themselves.
Nina Lykke is Professor of Gender and Culture, Unit of Gender Studies,
Linköping University, Sweden.
Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality
Core editorial group: Dr. Kathy Davis (Institute for History and Culture, Utrecht,
The Netherlands), Professor Jeff Hearn (managing editor; Örebro University,
Sweden; Hanken School of Economics, Finland; University of Huddersfi eld, UK),
Professor Anna G. Jónasdóttir (Örebro University, Sweden), Professor Nina Lykke
(managing editor; Linköping University, Sweden), Professor Chandra Talpade
Mohanty (Syracuse University, USA), Professor Elżbieta H. Oleksy (University
of Łódź, Poland), Dr. Andrea Petö (Central European University, Hungary),
Professor Ann Phoenix (Institute of Education, University of London, UK)
Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality is committed
to the development of new feminist and profeminist perspectives on chang-
ing gender relations, with special attention to:
• Intersections between gender and power differentials based on age,
class, dis/abilities, ethnicity, nationality, racialisation, sexuality, vio-
lence, and other social divisions.
• Intersections of societal dimensions and processes of continuity and
change: culture, economy, generativity, polity, sexuality, science and
technology.
• Embodiment: Intersections of discourse and materiality, and of sex and
gender.
• Transdisciplinarity: intersections of humanities, social sciences, medi-
cal, technical and natural sciences.
• Intersections of different branches of feminist theorizing, including:
historical materialist feminisms, postcolonial and anti-racist femi-
nisms, radical feminisms, sexual difference feminisms, queerfeminisms,
cyberfeminisms, posthuman feminisms, critical studies on men and
masculinities.
• A critical analysis of the travelling of ideas, theories and concepts.
• A politics of location, refl exivity and transnational contextualising that
refl ects the basis of the Series framed within European diversity and
transnational power relations.
1 Feminist Studies 3 Sexuality, Gender and Power
A Guide to Intersectional Theory, Intersectional and Transnational
Methodology and Writing Perspectives
Nina Lykke Edited by Anna G. Jónasdóttir,
Valerie Bryson and Kathleen B.
2 Women, Civil Society and the Jones
Geopolitics of Democratization
Denise M. Horn
4 The Limits of Gendered 11 Imagining Masculinities
Citizenship Spatial and Temporal Representa-
Contexts and Complexities tion and Visual Culture
Edited by Elżbieta H. Oleksy, Jeff Katarzyna Kosmala
Hearn and Dorota Golańska
12 Rethinking Transnational Men
5 Theories and Methodologies in Beyond, Between and Within
Postgraduate Feminist Research Nations
Researching Differently Edited by Jeff Hearn, Marina
Edited by Rosemarie Buikema, Blagojević and Katherine
Gabriele Griffi n and Nina Lykke Harrison
6 Making Gender, Making War
13 Being a Man in a Transnational
Violence, Military and Peacekeep-
World
ing Practices
The Masculinity and Sexuality of
Edited by Annica Kronsell and
Migration
Erika Svedberg
Ernesto Vasquez del Aguila
7 Emergent Writing
14 Love
Methodologies in Feminist
A Question for Feminism in the
Studies
Twenty-First Century
Edited by Mona Livholts
Edited by Anna G. Jónasdóttir and
Ann Ferguson
8 Gender and Sexuality in Online
Game Cultures
Passionate Play 15 The Politics of Recognition and
Jenny Sundén and Malin Social Justice
Sveningsson Transforming Subjectivities and
New Forms of Resistance
9 Heterosexuality in Theory and Edited by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli
Practice and Bob Pease
Chris Beasley, Heather Brook and
Mary Holmes 16 Writing Academic Texts
Differently
10 Tourism and the Globalization Intersectional Feminist Meth-
of Emotions odologies and the Playful Art of
The Intimate Economy of Tango Writing
Maria Törnqvist Edited by Nina Lykke
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Writing Academic Texts

Differently
Intersectional Feminist Methodologies
and the Playful Art of Writing
Edited by Nina Lykke
In collaboration with Anne Brewster,
Kathy Davis, Redi Koobak, Sissel Lie
and Andrea Petö
First published 2014
by Routledge
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© 2014 Taylor & Francis
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and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Writing academic texts differently : intersectional feminist methodologies
and the playful art of writing / edited by Nina Lykke.
pages cm. — (Routledge advances in feminist studies and
intersectionality ; 16)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Feminism—Authorship. 2. Women authors. 3. Feminism and
literature. 4. Creative writing. 5. Academic writing. I. Lykke, Nina,
editor of compilation.
PN471.W755 2014
808.02082—dc23
2014007062
ISBN: 978-0-415-50225-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-81856-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Exercises ix
Note on Terminology xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Editorial Introduction 1
NINA LYKKE, ANNE BREWSTER, KATHY DAVIS,
REDI KOOBAK, SISSEL LIE AND ANDREA PETÖ
PART ONE
The Politics of Writing Differently
1 Intersectionality as Critical Methodology 17
KATHY DAVIS
2 Passionate Disidentifi cations as an Intersectional
Writing Strategy 30
NINA LYKKE
3 Writing the Place from Which One Speaks 47
REDI KOOBAK AND SURUCHI THAPAR-BJÖRKERT
4 Whiteness and Affect: The Embodied Ethics
of Relationality 62
ANNE BREWSTER
5 Feminist Crime Fiction as a Model for Writing History
Differently 80
ANDREA PETÖ
viii Contents
PART TWO
Learning to Write Differently
6 Six Impossible Things before Breakfast: How I Came across
My Research Topic and What Happened Next 95
REDI KOOBAK
7 The Infi nite Resources for Writing 111
SISSEL LIE
8 From an Empty Head to a Finished Text: The Writing Process 126
SISSEL LIE
9 The Choreography of Writing an Introduction 142
NINA LYKKE
10 Politics of Gendered Remembering: Feminist Narratives
of “Meaningful Objects” 161
ANDREA PETÖ
11 Making Theories Work 172
KATHY DAVIS
12 Making Language Your Own: Brainstorming, Heteroglossia
and Poetry 180
ANNE BREWSTER
13 Writing in Stuck Places 194
REDI KOOBAK
14 Publish or Perish: How to Get Published in an International
Journal 208
KATHY DAVIS
Postscripts
On (Not) Reading Deleuze in Cairns 2 21
SUSANNE GANNON
Authors’ Aphorisms: A Year of Writing . . . 223
Contributors 225
Index 229
Exercises
Chapter 1
Exercise 1: Ask the Other Question 24
Chapter 2
Exercise 2: Disidentifi catory Writing 43
Chapter 3
Exercise 3: Geopolitical Location and Identity 49
Exercise 4: Your Motivations and Perspectives 52
Exercise 5: What Brought You to Your Project? 56
Exercise 6: Power and Privilege in Research 59
Chapter 4
Exercise 7: Writing about Place 62
Exercise 8: At the Border of Self and Other 65
Exercise 9: The Face 70
Chapter 5
Exercise 10: Develop a Short Crime Story 81
Chapter 7
Exercise 11: Suggestions and Questions 124
Chapter 8
Exercise 12: Thinking about Writing 128
Exercise 13: Writing to Think 129
Exercise 14: Writing to Remember 1 130
Exercise 15: Writing to Remember 2 131
Exercise 16: Writing with the Senses 131
Exercise 17: Writing to Communicate 1 33
Exercise 18: Silence Your Private Censor 134