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Wednesday, 5 Dec 1pm for an hour in RLH 409, experiment with the delights of
…and if you enjoy the session and want more, there will be a two-day workshop 11 & 12 January.
Agenda
Brain-storming future Go Create! seminar ideas (We have the first half of the year covered, but need ideas and people for the second half.
CQR and CEL are beginning a joint adventure! We are developing an association with the Centre for Excellence in Learning, particularly around creativity.Come along and share your thoughts.
Research Collaborations! Many of you have ideas for projects, big and small, and just need that extra pair of hands (and creative input!) to make it happen. A chance to put your ideas forward, and see who might help make them happen!
Any other business
The result was an enhanced depth of understanding of specific interpretive research methodologies as well as an unexpected support mechanism.
The group’s primary function was to support development of its understanding of methodologies and methods, but an unexpected secondary function was the reduction of a sense of isolation.
United through the fundamental overarching field of narrative research, four doctoral candidates with distinct topic areas were able to collaborate. They not only enhanced their depth of understanding of specific interpretive research methodologies, but also provided support and encouragement to each other within the potentially isolating experience of postgraduate research study.
What is ”ephemera”? It consists of objects of little or no monetary value that represent moments in our past. They can include pamphlets, railroad tickets, stamps, old letters or photographs, a food stained recipe card, a small piece of clothing, an accessory like a ribbon or a badge, sheet music, keys, post cards, used concert or theatre tickets, a self‐penned poem or a song, or a drawing. They all have a story to tell if we are willing to listen.
Perhaps I’d better reveal more of our journey and tell you a bit about the group. We came together having booked our place at the auspiciously titled “Creative Writing Workshop for Academics” led by the legend that is Kip Jones. I would say it was a journey that we would all do again in a heartbeat.
Kip invited us, compelled us, to discard the shackles of academic or more formal forms of writing; we breathed in deeply and sought to find our inner selves, the child unconstrained by conventions that have both helped and hindered our writing over the years.
So, applying all that I learned from Kip, I am not going to over-analyse my writing and I will go with what feels right. Studying the ‘postcards’ from the group – Peter’s postcard will come first, just because it feels right, he sums up the experience for us all really.
From Peter Wolfensberger:
postcard to myself or
everything matters and nothing really does unless the moment you belong and love – exercise one
Struggling with my thesis I considered the creative writing workshop as a source for inspiration. So, I travelled long distance just to be confronted with myself and who I am and writing the story of my life on a postcard! Really?! Yes, – and no, there is more: Watching two boys on a crowded beach in the twenties has as much to do with me as trying to make sense of dreams that I can never remember. Writing a poem, a script treatment, a story, my story? In the end, it’s all just a tagline away from my thesis… But hey, I belonged to this wonderful group of people who kind of tried to do the same or something very different. Love you all! ‘
A bit more to reveal here with Mark’s postcard:
From: Mark Readman
Dear Group
‘Taglines, poems, life stories on postcards, writing, sharing, reading aloud and, ultimately, bringing my academic work to life through the art of storytelling – what a great way to start the new year!’
Now back to me. The writing is now getting more difficult. I can’t really complete with the beauty of the words conveyed in the postcards. Kip did promise that our first attempts will be quite bad and will need plenty of re-write. So, I walk away, I head off to make a cup of tea and read The Guardian. Nothing much to learn about me from my reading choice, nor, did I expect to learn much from it. I read it because I enjoy a few of the Saturday regulars and primarily because it’s still free on line. I click on one of my favourite columns, “Blind date” and this week’s column looks promisingly uplifting, entitled; “We parted with a kiss”. It was a good read, and I wondered if the format could be borrowed for the blog. And so I try below:
From: Susanne Clarke
The scene: The Group meets each other and Kip for our first “Blind Date”.
What were we hoping for:
Improvement, enlightenment, and perhaps a cry from the heart to help with the struggle that is a life centered around writing, at the very least, some basic hints and tips and a creative start to the year.
What we weren’t expecting, but I think we were all secretly hoping for as Caroline put so well in her postcard, “…one thing that I did take away from the creative writing workshop was passion and confidence in creative writing.”
Our First Impressions:
Positive, the group were warmly welcomed, Kip was laid back, relaxed and we got a sense it was all going to be ok. Kip set us some homework – to recall our night time dreams. I think we were all slightly scared.
What did we talk about:
Everything and anything, somehow Kip got us to reflect deeply, perhaps share things we wouldn’t normally be so bold with. Kip shared intimate reflections with us and made it ok to share back.
Any awkward moments:
There really should have been, we were stretched, we cried, we laughed, however, I don’t recall anything being awkward and I can’t find a hint of this in the postcards.
Although, if I am honest there was a moment for me. When Kip set us the task to create poems from our recollection of recent dreams, as a lifelong fan of Pam Ayres, my poem had to rhyme, consequently, my attempt lacked the depth of feeling conveyed by the poems written and read out loud by others in the group. But it did rhyme. I did feel slightly awkward, mine was rather light, however, in the end it was alright.
Good table manners?
We did lunch as a group, it was a great ending to our adventure, and our table manners were impeccable, as far as I could tell.
Would we introduce Kip to our friends?
A resounding yes, why wouldn’t anyone be less than delighted to meet Kip, and I would happily introduce Kip and the whole group to all my friends.
Describe Kip in three words:
Charismatic, warm and unconventional
What do we think Kip made of us?
He told us we were the best group he had ever taught, he was probably lying. He made us feel special though.
Did you go on somewhere?
This is where I will leave the ‘Blind Date’ format and head to something slightly more hypothetical, we are all now continuing somewhere, we are improved from our experience, but taking different paths. Let’s now share some more postcards from the group. I guess where we go next in our journey remains to be seen.
From: Trevor Hearing
Dear Group
….‘Kip’s Tree of Performative Social Science is a rare species that grows over ground and underground with each workshop I attend, sending hidden signals around the world through its mycelium that it is OK to write about yourself as a source of knowledge because in doing so we are feeding others with the compost of our imaginations. I learned the value of metaphor at this workshop’….
Love Trevor xxx
From: Caroline Jackson
Dear friends,
“…. The interventions offered by Kip and my workshop colleagues were productive in many ways. I came away with the following:
- I like writing.
- I can let go and write something not directly related to an academic output and it be worthwhile.
- Some questions and techniques to use in future writing activities, academic or not.
- Some ideas for my own students on their creative thinking and work.
Wish you were here, love Caroline xxx
From: Carly Stewart
Dear group
…” It opened up my thinking and reconnected me to the heart-felt reason I enjoy academia in the first place. I had time and space to think deeply about ideas and new ways to express them, not for outcome or in the surface skimming tone so often required of us. And the epiphany for me was that dedicating time for creative space did not send me spinning off on a tangent from academia but instead loosened my thoughts and reconfigured them in a way that inspired me to pick up the reins of academic writing once again.”
Love Carly xxx
And finally, from me (Susanne). I spent time with a colleague this week writing with a deadline to submit an abstract. I approached this with more confidence and my biggest lesson from Kip – I could hear his voice, “work on a catchy title” he said this a few times. Our title begins with “Shrek and the Onion…. “ It wouldn’t have done before Kip entered my life and thoughts. Will our abstract take us to the conference in the sun, who knows?
PS We would also like to thank others in the group who are not represented here but who contributed towards the experience.
Pleased to announce that a copy of the Handbook of Arts-based Research, Patricia Leavy, Editor, is now available at Bournemouth University’s Lansdowne Library, but also available electronically online. The compendium includes a Chapter, “Research as Film, Film as Research” by FMC’s Trevor Hearing and FHSS’ Kip Jones.
Lee-Ann Fenge and Kip Jones
A blog recently requested by the editor of Sage Publications’ Methodspace highlights an article representing focus group data in a new way. In a recent report, two BU Academics, Lee-Ann Fenge and Kip Jones (FHSS), took an inventive approach in writing up their findings in the online journal, Creative Approaches to Research. The Sage editor said, “I thought your paper brought up some good methodology issues”.
The authors believe that as narrative researchers and storytellers we should be promoting narrative in the content and styles of our publications. We can no longer afford to ignore the great advances that have been made in representation of qualitative data in recent history. As narrative researchers, we are natural storytellers and need to keep this in focus when reporting studies, particularly in publications. In this way, as researchers, we move to the background, and the research participants are foregrounded.
“Kyle’s photo-montage of black and white clippings, mostly from fashion magazines, Bailey and Avedon, etc., glued to the walls surrounding his bed”.
“Dirty Frank’s” bar, Philadelphia, where the main characters of “Copacetica” frequently meet.
“Copacetica” tells the tale of a gullible youth on a roller coaster ride of loss of innocence and coming out in the flux and instability of 1960s hippy America. Often seen as a period of revolution in social norms, Copacetica’s themes include being different, the celebration of being an outsider, seeing oneself from outside of the “norm”, and the interior conflicts of “coming out” within a continuum as a (gay) male in a straight world. These observations are set within the flux and instability of a period of great social change, but which are often viewed in retrospect as consistent and definable. Being straight or being gay can also be viewed in a similar way within the wider culture’s need to set up a sexual binary and force sexual “choice” decision-making for the benefit of the majority culture, or ‘heteronormativity’. Through the device of the fleeting moment, the story interrogates the certainties and uncertainties of the “norms” of modernity.
In the later gallery scene (not yet published), a minor character explains the meaning of the word, “copacetic”:
VISITOR TWO What d’he say? VISTOR ONE “Everything’s copacetic”! (Beat) What does that mean, anyway? VISITOR THREE Everything’s cool. Everything’s okay. Or “Groovy” as they like to say.
Asked what he enjoyed about writing the script for this film, Jones said, “Definitely revisiting the slang used by youth of the 1960s! It’s virtually its own language. And writing the sex scenes. Exciting and very tiring. Almost like the real thing”.
KIPWORLD, the personal weblog of Bournemouth University academic, Kip Jones, reached a milestone this week, measuring 250,000 page views in the all-time history of the blog. Jones also writes for other blogs from time to time (LSE Impact blog, LSE Review of Books, Discover Society, Sociological Imagination, Creative Quarter, The Creativity Post, Bournemouth University Research Blog) as well.
As Jones reported earlier,
KIPWORLD is my personal blog where I write about projects that I am working on, but I also use it to develop my writing. A good example is a piece entitled, “How Breakthroughs Come: Tenacity and Perseverance”. First written for the blog, it was then reworked to include some reader responses to the earlier version. Through a Twitter connection, it was then published for a third time on the Social Research Hub, a site particularly aimed at PhD students in the Social Sciences.
Interestingly, the vast majority of the traffic to the site comes from Facebook where Jones moderates several special interest groups.The audience for KIPWORLD is predominantly in the USA, but the blog is viewed widely throughout the world.
The all-time top article on KIPWORLD is A summer holiday, three books and a story has received 17,499 views so far. The format is an exercise in creative autofiction, book review and a short story. This contribution to the site was written on holiday and is very much a personal reflection. A similar formula of tripartite creative writing developed by Jones recently made it to the pages of the academic journal, Qualitative Research Journal. (Interestingly, this ‘blog style’ article in an academic journal has been downloaded 30 times since publication in January 2017).
What might be called “How to” articles (such as What is a Systematic Review? or A Brief Outline for Organising/Writing the PhD Thesis) are also extremely popular.
Jones’ advice on blog writing to others:
Find your own voice, even your own subject material. Use your blog to develop your writing and your personal style. Don’t just assume that it has to look and sound like a blog to be one. Include at least one picture with every blog article. Let people know about the blog through social media—don’t expect an audience to just find it on its own. Promote it.
If the most important thing in your life IS to write about your cat, write about it as creatively as you possibly can. Enjoy the experience!
From time to time, Jones holds an hour-long taster session, “Academic Blog Writing”. If you are interested in joining an upcoming session, please email
‘True confessions: Why I left a traditional liberal arts college for the sins of the Big City’ by Kip Jones has been published today in Qualitative Research Journal (QRJ)
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l guest at the screening will be the actor Lin Blakley who played “Abigail” as an adult in RUFUS STONE, and who has lately been seen as Pam Coker, a major role, in EastEnders. 
Harry Kershaw, who played young “Rufus”, will also try to join us if he can. He has been very busy since filming with us with roles in the West End and on film, and has a performance that very night. Fingers crossed.
Watching the film with theatre projection is a special treat, if you’ve never experienced it this way before. The Shelley is atmospheric and exciting as well. Mary Shelley watched performances from her deathbed through a window in the theatre that still exists today!
After the half hour screening, there will be short Q&A with the audience. Then, as Joni Mitchell penned it so well, “If you want me, I’ll be in the bar”. We will retire to the renovated bar area for drinks and nibbles. It is here that you will have the chance to meet and chat with some of the representatives of educational, statutory and community organisations who have made an impact on their communities with their own screenings of RUFUS STONE over the past five years.
And this is in no way a swan song! RUFUS STONE will then move on to the University of Tampere in Finland on the 25th of November as the Keynote at their Social Psychology Conference.
It is important that you book soon for the Shelley, as places are limited.
Directions to the Shelley Theatre on the Eventbrite site.
Watch the Trailer for RUFUS STONE: https://vimeo.com/43395306
Thanks and looking forward to seeing you at the screening,
Kip
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