Creative Non-Fiction

In a historical moment of hurricanes, flooding, and unprecedented weather events, it is becoming increasingly clear that climate change is neither imagined nor distant—and that it is changing the coastline of the United States in irrevocable ways.

In Rising, Elizabeth Rush guides readers through our nation’s disappearing places, from Louisiana to Miami, Staten Island to the Bay Area. The wetlands that define these regions are among the most imperiled ecosystems on the planet—accustomed to periods of change, of ebb and flow, yet overwhelmed by rapidly shifting conditions. For many of the plants and animals who live there, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place.

Is human civilization facing a similar set of limited options? And how do we move forward in a world whose borders are already becoming unsettled and strange? Weaving the firsthand accounts of those who are living through sea level rise today—scientists, activists, and members of the communities both currently at risk and already displaced—with eyewitness reporting from our shoreline’s disappearing places, Rising is at once polyphonic and precise, lyric reportage that privileges the voices of those usually kept at the margins.

A shimmering meditation on vulnerability and on vulnerable communities, both human and more than human, and on how to let go of the places we love.

https://milkweed.org/book/rising

In his introduction to Palestinian Walks, Raja Shehadeh remarks that in spite of the great number of travelers to Palestine, travel literature, for the most part, willfully ignored the living experience and existence of the land’s inhabitants. Often, Palestine was the imaginary place that
was continuously invented to confirm religious and political beliefs. The Biblical imagination, along with the orientalist gaze, informed the accounts, and anything that did not correspond to the preconceived repertoire was quickly discarded. The native inhabitants were the first victims. At best professed the savage other, they were not considered the land’s rightful owners. Palestine was symbolically colonized in the Western imagination long before the British mandate. This vanishing homeland is a subject that dominates Shehadeh’s nonfiction narrative. Accounts of his walks expose parts of his homeland’s beauty and rewrite the Palestinian presence in its place, providing a counter-narrative to the Biblical imagination.

This contribution to the book 'Semi-detached writing, representation and criticism in Architecture' was developed from a paper first presented at the conference 'Writing architecture: a symposium on innovations in the textual and visual critique of buildings', held on Thursday 22 and Friday 23 July 2010 at the Queensland Art Gallery's Gallery of Modern Art, and the State Library of Queensland. The paper examines the relationship between literature and architecture historically and highlights the difference between how many writers lived in and became associated with particular cities and how they re-constructed them in fiction.

This non fiction novel is an attempt to understand the cicumstances of the suicide of Marilyn Monroe through an imaginary reconstitution of her relationship with Ralph Greenson, her psychoanalist.

Ce "roman" est une fiction documentaire où sont décrits les derniers mois de la vie de Marilyn Monroe avant son suicide, à travers la reconstitution de ses relations avec son psychanalyste, Ralph Greenson.

Recently there has been an upsurge of scholarly publications surrounding David Foster Wallace’s fiction, yet less attention has been directed towards his creative non-fiction.  Many Wallace fans admit that their interest in him began with the Harpers essays or with collections like Consider the Lobster, and yet there are few scholarly investigations into Wallace’s non-fiction oeuvre.  In this essay, I explore the theme of loneliness, discomfort, and sadness in “Shipping Out…” “Getting Away From…It All,” and Wallace’s interview with David Lipsky, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself.  I contextualize Wallace’s observation of contemporary American lost-ness with current sociological and psychological research  on how and why the technological revolution increases connection (more precisely a cyber-connection) but actually stimulates physical, tactile, face-to-face retreat (Although of Course 82).  Though Infinite Jest exposes what disconnection can lead to (i.e. addiction), Wallace’s creative non-fiction peels back the layers as to why such a large population of a first-world country is plagued by alienation in a more direct but just as engaging manner as his fiction, as Jonathan Clark observes, “Wallace’s complex mind and neurotic tendencies found their most successful (i.e. accessible and popular) outlet in nonfiction...[it] is more successful in doing what he aimed to do with literature and more representative of who he was as a person and a writer” (“To Make Us Feel Less Alone”).  Wallace’s creative non-fiction frees him from the rigorous self-analysis of his fiction, while his authorial voice–both humorous and critical–showcases Wallace’s writing at its least self-conscious, and invites readers to reflect on their own experiences and make connections between their lives and Wallace’s narratives.

In a compelling mix of literary narrative and ethnography, anthropologist Alma Gottlieb and writer Philip Graham continue the long journey of cultural engagement with the Beng people of Cote d'Ivoire that they first recounted in their award-winning memoir Parallel Worlds. Their commitment over the span of several decades has lent them a rare insight. Braiding their own stories with those of the villagers of Asagbe and Kosangbe, Gottlieb and Graham take turns recounting a host of unexpected dramas with these West African villages, prompting serious questions about the fraught nature of cultural contact. Through events such as a religious leader's declaration that the authors' six-year-old son, Nathaniel, is the reincarnation of a revered ancestor, or Graham's late father being accepted into the Beng afterlife, or the increasing, sometimes dangerous madness of a villager, the authors are forced to reconcile their anthropological and literary gaze with the deepest parts of their personal lives. Along with these intimate dramas, they follow the Beng from times of peace through the times of tragedy that led to Cote d'Ivoire's recent civil conflicts. From these and many other interweaving narratives - and with the combined strengths of an anthropologist and a literary writer - "Braided Worlds" examines the impact of postcolonialism, race, and global inequity at the same time that it chronicles a living, breathing village community where two very different worlds meet.

Review by Barbara Rixstine It's two hours to deadline. Your fingers are tapping the keys, but the words in your head seem to have taken a holiday. This seems like the trillionth story you've had to put together on deadline this week, and there's nothing but dust where your creative flow used to be. Sound familiar? Cheer up-there's help to be had at the local bookstore. Telling True Stories is a compendium of articles about writing, reporting, news, and the newsroom. It could be a good, inexpensive resource for both the novice and the experienced writer in need of a little journalistic kick-start to rev up his or her own news story. Written by journalist s for journalists, the book helps writers and editors think about the work they're doing, why they do it, what may be missing from a story, and how a story might be written differently. It includes experiences in the editing trenches, a storyteller's lexicon, and on-the-road reporting.

A martial-arts master escapes from a prison camp in wartime China and flees to Malaya. His hopes for a quiet life are dashed when he saves a bus driver from a lynch mob. The master agrees to impart his secrets to five disciples. Although the organisation they found becomes internationally renowned, the arts are almost entirely lost as the initiates succumb to internal squabbling and greed.

New in Singapore, Chris Murray tracks down Chan See-meng, favourite disciple of the great Chee Kim Thong. Through dusty Malaysian villages and Shaolin Temple in China, the adventure that begins with gruelling practice on Chan's rooftop leads Chris in the footsteps of the masters. As he becomes absorbed in the esoteric depths of Five Ancestors Fist, he investigates the journey of Zen martial-arts from ancient temples to modern gymnasia. Can the traditional arts can survive in modernity?

An intimate memoir with historical scope, Crippled Immortals unites a cast of legendary heroes and slack-jawed monks, Indian yogi and Tibetan lamas, bluffers, gangsters, and champions who have been touched by Old Man Chee's arts. The practitioner’s path to enlightenment is always arduous, often hilarious, and sometimes heart-breaking. True adepts talk with their fists, but the strength that endures lies in the bond between master and disciple.

An encounter on a bus between two men prompts reflections on “the anthropological gaze,” questioning who is “normal,” who is the “other.” In ethnographic fashion I describe what I observed, and my reflections on it soon after and then decades later. This narrative raises questions about the ethics of observation and interpretation in public spaces, and asks us to consider how we make sense of who and what we see around us in ways that are respectful but insightful.

Learning about societies … is an attcmpt to analyse the phenomenon of Ryszard Kapuscinski`s writings, his creative and curious personality as well as the impact of his creative non-fiction on the readers. The book links two academic traditions: Polish sociology of culture and British cultural studies. ln the following chapters the author tries to situate Kapuscinski`s writings in the context of Polish and international schools of creative non-fiction. He points out striking similarities between the experiences of the reporter and ethnographic fieldwork research. ln the core part of the book, the author analyses the way elements of non-European cultures are depicted in Kapuścinski`s writings. These are: traditions, customs, beliels, emotional reactions and most. importantly - core values of numerous societies in Africa and Asia. Finally, the author of The learning about societies... tries to answer the question: Can Kapuścinski's writings be a source of knowledge about non-European cultures?

Teaching and learning observations (henceforth ‘observations’) are commonly used in a broad range of educational environments to assess teaching quality and support professional development. Research centred on observations in England’s Further Education colleges (FE), suggests these strategies are often ineffective because of tensions between ‘authentic’ teaching and the inherent performativity required by some managerialist policies (Ball 2003). This psychosocial study draws on interpretive interactionism (Denzin 1989) to explore lived emotional experiences of FE staff involved in observations and perceptions of embodied ‘performativity’.
My research involved in-depth semi-biographical interviews with FE staff (n=14) which explored emotional experiences of teaching and learning within the context of their roles as observer and/or observee. Using my personal reflections as an FE teacher, together with my creative writing skills, fictionalised accounts are presented to demonstrate anonymised consolidations of the participants’ narratives (Sparkes 2002). Using conceptual tools from Bourdieu (1991) and the lens of psychoanalysis (Mollon 2002) I draw on Richardson’s (1997) ‘writing as a method of inquiry’ and Ochberg’s (2002) non-linear approach to data analysis to explore shared and disparate themes within the accounts, reflections and fictionalised texts.
Vocational and personal learning experiences are argued to form a fundamental aspect of the professional habitus of FE staff (James, Biesta 2007). Outcomes from my innovative approach, illuminates this interplay of factors, specifically within the affectivity in the performativity of observations. Hence these findings provide an original contribution to knowledge in this area, by demonstrating how the potential tension in observations is situated in the personal significance of perceptions of an ‘in/authentic self’, rather than the performativity per se. Fictionalisation could be a useful tool to further explore lived emotional experiences of teaching and learning. Indeed, raising awareness of the perceived performativity intrinsic within the affectivity of observations could hold benefits for teaching practice more widely.

On Drugs explores philosopher Chris Fleming’s experience of addiction, which begins when he is a student and escalates into a life-threatening compulsion.

In a memoir by turns insightful and outlandish, Fleming combines meticulous observation with a keen sense of the absurdity of his actions. He describes the intricacies of drug use and acquisition, the impact of drugs on the intellect and emotions, and the chaos that emerges as his tightly managed existence unravels into hospitalisations, arrests and family breakdown. His account is accompanied by searching reflections on his childhood, during which he developed acute obsessive compulsive disorder and became fixated on the rituals of martial arts, music-making and bodybuilding.

In confronting the pathos and comedy of drug use, On Drugs also opens out into meditations on the self and its deceptions, religion, masculinity, mental illness, and the tortuous path to recovery.

‘A searching, considered account of drug and alcohol use and the mechanisms of addiction.’ Books+Publishing

All’interno del corpus dell’autore napoletano di incontrano due testi che presentano la stessa tematica e lo stesso personaggio principale ma fanno ricorso a tecniche narrative completamente diverse. Il personaggio in questione è Francesca Spada, ex collega di Rea alla redazione dell’Unità di Napoli, morta suicida nel 1961, e i due testi nel quale è protagonista sono Mistero napoletano (1995) e La comunista (2012).
Dopo diciassette anni, Rea torna agli argomenti che avevano mosso il romanzo precedente (guerra fredda a Napoli, presenza americana in città, stalinismo immobilista del Partito Comunista, stallo culturale cittadino, emigrazione intellettuale, desiderio di autocritica, ecc.), ma se nel romanzo del 1995 la forma scelta è quella di una ricostruzione diaristica delle ricerche portate avanti dall’autore per dimostrare la sua tesi, attraverso un’ordinata esposizione dei documenti via via trovati e la trascrizione più o meno fedele delle interviste realizzate nella ricerca delle cause, intime e pubbliche, che hanno portato al suicidio di Francesca Spada, nel racconto lungo l’impostazione cambia in modo radicale: si racconta dell’incontro tra l'autore e il fantasma della ex collega, che discutono sia del romanzo, sia del riscontro che l'opera ha avuto in città. Attraverso il resoconto che l'Io narrante fa al fantasma di un incontro svoltosi in una chiesa napoletana per parlare del libro che
Il confronto tra le due opere è utile perché lo stile estremamente diverso consente di mettere in risalto le caratteristiche del Mistero napoletano più marcatamente non-finzionali e di leggere, grazie ad alcuni commenti espliciti, le intenzioni perseguite da Rea attraverso quella precisa scelta stilistica.

El artículo demuestra que el periodismo narrativo de gran factura estética se abre camino en la oferta editorial española, tanto en la versión en papel, como en la electrónica. Los lectores de revistas como Orsai  y  Jot Down  están dispuestos a pagar por leer textos de largo aliento, si la calidad lo merece. Se cumple lo que teóricos como Boynton o editores como Kylman afirmaban: la creatividad es el desafío. El estudio emprende un recorrido histórico para comprender por qué se habla de un boom  del periodismo narrativo iberoamericano y analiza en profundidad esas dos publicaciones para explicar cómo la combinación del viejo y el nuevo periodismo han dado como resultado dos historias de portada.

Palabras clave : Periodismo literario/periodismo narrativo, géneros periodísticos, nuevos modelos editoriales, Orsai, Jot Down

Abstract
This article purports to demonstrate that print and digital publications offering high-quality narrative journalism in Spanish are gaining an increasingly wider readership. Fur
thermore, readers of magazines such as  Orsai and
Jot Down are willing to pay for longform journalism that meets their aesthetic standards. What theorists such as Boynton and
editors such as Kilman have asserted has now been confirmed: the key is creativity. This paper offers a chronological overview of the genre that helps explain why is there is so much talk about a boom in Latin- American narrative journalism today and provides an in-depth analysis of how the combination of conventional and groundbreaking styles of journalism has spelled out success for two of these publications.

Keywords Literary journalism, narrative journalism, journalistic genres, new editorial models, Orsai, Jot Down

In 1951 Swedish writer Stig Dagerman wrote an autobiographical essay titled "Our Need for Consolation is Insatiable." It is a remarkable poetic meditation on the life-and-death stakes of the literary imagination from a writer who was likely suffering from an undiagnosed bipolar disorder, fighting for his life through one depressive episode after another. Written when his critical reputation and fame as Sweden’s greatest new literary phenom had been firmly established following a remarkable outpouring of critically acclaimed work in the late 1940s, the essay marked a point in time when the tides had turned for Dagerman, who now struggled with the opposite of this productive streak in the form of a debilitating bout of writer’s block that would eventually contribute to his suicide two years later. "Our Need for Consolation is Insatiable" lays bare the writer’s fragile psyche, not only his faltering ego but his selfless and far from sure-footed ambition to offer something of lasting beauty and meaning to a world indifferent to his very existence. While writing the essay, Dagerman managed to rise temporarily from the depths of his depression and identify the sources of his own consolation and hope in terms that have continued to resonate powerfully with many readers, and fellow writers, over the following 60 years.

Originally published in 1952 in the improbable venue of Husmodern (a magazine dedicated to home economics for Swedish housewives, analogous to American magazines like Good Housekeeping or Better Homes and Gardens), the essay was a profound response to a trivial commission from the magazine’s editors, who asked Dagerman to send them “something on the art of living.” The soul- and psyche-searching tour de force that Dagerman composed was not likely what the editors had in mind, but to their credit—and also possibly owing to his celebrity—they published the essay as written. The essay has since been translated into 10 languages and published / reprinted a great many times. This is the first literary translation of the essay into English.

In this manuscript, Gries forges connections between the indigenous invocation “all our relations” and aleatory materialism, vibrant materialism, and agential realism to introduce new materialist ontobiography (NMO) as a critical-creative approach for new materialist rhetoric. To explicate its affordances, I describe NMO’s in situ research and compositional strategies, model NMO in action through a vignette called “Rocks,” and
highlight three implications of NMO for rhetoric and writing studies. Gries argues that by cultivating reciprocal responsivity, establishing relational accountability, and learning how to “dwell in motion with other,” NMO can help tap into the rhetoricity that co-constitutes collective life.

I Rikdommens språk utforsker åtte forfattere ulike sider ved Oljefondet. Hver tekst tar for seg et begrep som er sentralt i fondets fortelling om og fremstilling av seg selv. Ved å fokusere på språket som brukes om fondet, belyser forfatterne rikdommen som preger livene både innenfor og utenfor Norges grenser.

Oljefondet forvalter statens inntekter fra utvinningen av olje og gass i Nordsjøen, og har på kort tid vokst til å bli verdens største statlige investeringsfond. Det tilhører det norske folk i fellesskap, og yter store bidrag til finansieringen av offentlige tjenester over statsbudsjettet. Fondet er dypt forankret i demokratisk politikk og byråkratisk forvaltning, og har gjort det norske folk og samfunn til en stor aktør i de internasjonale finansmarkedene.

Rikdommens språk bringer sammen økonomer, forskere, sakprosaskribenter og skjønnlitterære forfattere. Ved hjelp av ulike litterære former og virkemidler opplyser de forskjellige aspekter ved denne institusjonen, som får stadig større betydning for det norske samfunnet og verden for øvrig.

Bidragsyterne er Cathrine Knudsen, Morten Søberg, Amalie Kasin Lerstang, Klaus Mohn, Bjørn Vatne, Øyvind Rimbereid, Karl Emil Rosenbæk og Anne Karin Sæther.

Rikdommens språk springer ut av forskningsprosjektet «Forms and Ethics, Shapes of Finance», og tekstene er utarbeidet blant annet på bakgrunn av felles seminarer avholdt i desember 2020 og mars 2021.

Literary review of a book on practical permaculture. Wisconsin farmer Mark Shepard argues persuasively that “restoration agriculture”—a style of farming that models itself after the natural ecosystems of the Midwest rather than a manufacturing facility—can not only restore biodiversity but provide better nutrition and a better economic foundation for our communities.

This study explores the meaning of the death of a companion animal through autoethnographic poetry in conjunction with narrative reflections. This method expands the depth and scope of poetry in qualitative research by transforming expressive works into both the subject and product of inquiry.

Friends, permit me to say that I believe you are mistaken. True, there is
no actual disorder to your way of life; but it has entered deeply into other
men’s minds. See what is preparing itself amongst the working classes,
who, I grant, are not yet breaking down your doors. No doubt they are
not disturbed by social passions, properly so called, to the same extent
that they have been; but can you not see that their passions, instead of
social, have become political?3 Do you not see that they are gradually
forming opinions and ideas that are destined not only to upset this or
that law, ministry, or even form of government, but society itself, until the
foundations upon which it rests today crumble into sand, ready to be mixed
anew into structures you cannot even imagine, yet alone fund?4 Are you not
able to hear what they say to themselves each day because of the plethora
of voices always on the horizon, none seemingly more immanent than the
next, each one canceling out what the other seems to say?

New South Wales (NSW™) was invented in 1788 by Governor Arthur Philip after 18 years of exploratory market research. Branding itself ‘The First Colony’, it was based out of Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, and was etched from semi-arid plains, trackless deserts and a mountainous barrier. Initially the colony (1530 people) depended on English imports for survival. Battling droughts, floods and bush fires; the colonisers also had poor farming techniques for the infertile soils and limited fishing and hunting skills. Dire? Maybe, but invoking the adage ‘necessity is the mother of invention’, the colonisers were some of the most hardy and innovative people in the world.

Książka Jak świat prawdziwy stał się bajką jest pionierską próbą opisu literatury niefi kcjonalnej, która, zdaniem autora, funkcjonuje na rynku wydawniczym jako ko-mercyjny produkt o ściśle określonych dyrektywach czytelniczych. Granica między fi kcją a nie-fi kcją jest nieodłącznym elementem strategii marketingowej stosowanej w ramach współczesnego pola literackiego, gdzie dla coraz lepiej sprzedającej się literatury niefi kcjonalnej zarezerwowano odrębne nagrody literackie, serie wydaw-nicze, w księgarniach wydzielono osobne miejsca sprzedaży, a jej wydawaniem zajmują się niekiedy nawet osobne ofi cyny. Jednocześnie niektórzy pisarze, korzy-stając z koniunktury na literaturę niefi kcjonalną i godząc się na ustalone reguły ryn-kowej gry, dają się ponieść swoim powieściopisarskim ambicjom i łamią przy tym umowę zawartą uprzednio z czytelnikiem. Paweł Zajas, profesor Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, analizuje tego typu postawy, przyjmując w swojej pracy perspektywę badawczą, którą określa jako etyczną. Nie zajmuje bynajmniej stanowiska normatywnego, lecz kieruje się przekonaniem, iż dopóki literatura nie-fi kcjonalna będzie funkcjonować jako osobny obszar piśmiennictwa, dopóty pisarze chcący z tego gatunku czerpać profi ty muszą dotrzymywać zawiązanego z czytelni-kiem paktu, a Klio, muza Historii, nie powinna udawać poetki. Paweł Zajas jest pracownikiem naukowym w Instytucie Filologii Angielskiej Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu oraz badaczem stowarzyszo-nym (research fellow) w University of Pretoria (RPA). Zajmuje się badaniami nad teoriami i literaturami postkolonialnymi, antropologią i socjologią literatury oraz propagandą kulturową.

Ang kabataan ay ang pag-asa ng ating bayan." Ito ay isa sa mga napaka-tanyag na katagang binitiwan ng ating pambansang bayani na si Doktor Jose Rizal noong siya'y nabubuhay pa. Dito, inilalarawan niya na ang kabataan ay ang siyang may kakayahan na ipagtanggol ang ating bayan laban sa mga mananakop o sa iba't ibang uri ng tao na may maitim na adhikain sa ating bansa. Ngunit, dahil sa mabilis na pagtakbo ng panahon, masasabi pa ba natin na ang kabataan ay siyang tunay na pag-asa ng Pilipinas, ang bayang ating sinilangan?

Since soon after the publication of Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe, there have been many different cinematic and literary adaptations of this famous adventure story, which are collectively known as “Robinsonades.” Due to the plastic nature of the Robinson Crusoe story, which is a function of what Mikhail Bakhtin defines as the “adventure chronotope,” there are many intra-medial and inter-medial adaptations of Defoe’s novel in different historical, cultural, social and ideological contexts in which the “dominant” and/or “emergent” “structures of feeling” are represented. Thus, as an outcome of all these various adaptations, it is possible to observe a polyphonic voice in the entirety of the Robinsonades, in which many contradictory ideas and voices are highlighted. This thesis furthers the exploration of the adaptability of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe by illustrating the central argument with reference to an intra-medial (Elizabeth Whittaker’s “Robina Crusoe and Her Lonely Island Home”) and one inter-medial adaptation (Robinson Crusoe, 1997) of the Robinson Crusoe story.  In the introduction part of the thesis, following a brief account of the adventure genre, Raymond Williams’s “structures of feeling” model is introduced with reference to the Robinson Crusoe story and the Robinsonade tradition. Then, Bakhtin’s ideas on “chronotope,” “adventure time,” and “polyphony” and the main methodological approach that is used in analysing these adaptations are explained. In the first chapter, Elizabeth Whittaker’s serialised fiction “Robina Crusoe and Her Lonely Island Home” is dealt with to argue that Whittaker’s “Robina” not only exemplifies the conventional woman character of the period, but also articulates and highlights the changing relationships between the Empire and the woman, and, in turn, gives voice to the New Woman in this same period, showing the text’s ability to address certain themes and tensions which were relevant for its particular reading audience and which represented the “dominant” and/or “emergent” “structures of feeling” in late Victorian Britain. The same method is also used in the second chapter while illustrating the discursive and ideological plasticity of the Robinson Crusoe story by discussing selected scenes from an inter-medial adaptation, namely the film Robinson Crusoe that accommodates both the “dominant” and “emergent” discourses on post-colonial multiculturalism. Moreover, it is argued that even though the polyphonic quality is attributed to the entirety of the Robinsonade tradition, in the film Robinson Crusoe, there is polyphony within the work itself as well, which is explained with reference to the voices heard in the various textual examples dealt with in this chapter. In the conclusion part, it is contended that the Robinson Crusoe story’s plasticity and heterogeneity can best be explained with reference to a specific type of “literary chronotope,” one which Bakhtin calls the “adventure chronotope,” and to “polyphony” in which different ideological positions are represented and given voice.

“Simon Schama’s Power of Art” is a BBC documentary series presented and written by art historian Simon Schama. The series had eight episodes each explaining eight important artists based on how he or she made visual art a more powerful medium, following the art history timeline, post-renaissance to the contemporary period. The Episodes are: number one, “Caravaggio's David with the Head of Goliath”, number two, “Bernini's Ecstasy of St Theresa”, number three, “Rembrandt's Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis”, number four, “Jacques-Louis David's The Death of Marat”, number five, “Turner's The Slave Ship”, number six, “Vincent van Gogh's Wheat Field with Crows”, number seven, “Picasso's Guernica” and finally number eight, “Mark Rothko's Black on Maroon”. The series was broadcasted in October – November 2006 through the BBC TV channels. Each episode is almost one-hour long, analyzing these artworks and to make a meaningful description of what, how and why these artworks had to be done. Simon has made a very unusual structure for the series. He mainly focused on the most important artwork of these artists, and draw the connection with their other works, life events, psychology, the social and political environment of their area to intrigue the audience since cinema is one of the most communicative art media in this 21st century. Analyzing these paintings and sculptures by using the camera, various types of lens, editing, and voice-over have created new meaning and communication of these masterpieces with the audiences. On the other hand, the making of the episodes is also different from one another. Simon plans to edit and apply visual effect through the sequences of the episodes, so the artist’s style is reflected. The cinematography, art direction, lighting, editing, and music had different styles and techniques for each episode. And besides these, Simon’s main point is what the power of art is. In response, he has selected these essential artworks which were breaking the traditions of creating art in its time, and all the information he describes the artist and his works are connected at the end of each episode to develop more significant meaning about that specific artwork.

Infographic modified on 29 June 2022 after spontaneous creation on 28 June 2022 and posted at https://www.healthythinking.substack.com/p/appreciating-the-structures-and-interconnections; this is the author’s own perspective, without citation to or derivation from other works. Updates posted at https://www.healthythinking.substack.com and published in updates to Inflammation Mastery textbook: https://www.inflammationmastery.com

Nota introduttiva Come si trasforma in scrittura la materia della vita? 1. Bildung di uno scrittore dilettante 1. Un atteggiamento di autentica finzione 2. Künstlerroman partenopeo 2.1 Il ritratto dello scrittore da giovane 2.2 Cronache di un funzionario editoriale 2.3 Tempo di bilanci 3. Incertezze identitarie 3.1 Oscillazioni della voce in Quando scriviamo da giovani ed elaborate trasparenze di Acqua, sudore e ghiaccio 3.2 «Lo spettatore rovesciato»: strategie di posizionamento testuale 4. Le "inchieste in soggettiva": Franchini nei domini della nonfiction 4.1 Raccontare senza inventare, o quasi 4.2 Un'inchiesta a caso risolto: L'abusivo 4.3 Ricostruzione di una Distruzione: Cronaca della fine 5. «Noi riportiamo tutto a noi stessi»: il racconto di sé come ancoraggio della realtà 6. Un patto di connivenza letteraria 2. Strategie di un classicismo aggiornato 1. Macrostrutture: attacchi e confessioni finali 2. Ritmi ben temperati e spontaneità diaristica, ovvero la selezione delle informazioni 2.1 Montaggio parallelo in Acqua, sudore e ghiacchio 3 2.2 Argomentazione spiraliforme in Quando vi ucciderete 2.3 Uno studiato contrappunto: L'abusivo 3. Surdeterminazioni, miniaturizzazioni 4. Fascino da Doppelgänger 4.1 Giancarlo Siani, il gemello buono 4.2 Dante Virgili, il gemello cattivo 5. Allegro con brio: la macchietta napoletana 6. «Rileggersi da adulti» 6.1 Meccanismi metaletterari, distanziamento e ironia 6.2 Scrittura documentale e scrittura monumentale 7. «In palestra a farsi lo stile» 8. Uso del dialetto 9. La trappola liscia della scrittura 3. La letteratura come menzogna o come tauromachia 1. «"Le parole sono puttane"» 2. Ontologia della finzione 3. Letteratura come tauromachia 4. Corpo a corpo con la scrittura: la tentazione dell'impegno 5. «A rileggermi mi vergogno»: esame di coscienza di un letterato 6. «La scrittura non chiude i conti con la vita»: elogio del dilettantismo 7. L'irritante eroismo delle leukà ostea 8. Il punteggio di Amburgo (un'idea di letteratura) Appendice Nota conclusiva Bibliografia 4 Una volta un mio amico mi aveva esposto una teoria davvero molto brillante davanti alla quale mi ero limitato a dire è suggestiva, ma l'hai verificata? Mi rispose, fingendosi scandalizzato, sei pazzo? Come vuoi che sciupi con una volgare immersione nella realtà una costruzione così piena d'armonia e di simmetrie? Antonio Franchini, Cronaca della fine 5 Nota introduttiva Come si trasforma in scrittura la materia della vita? Era il 1992 quando Vittorio Spinazzola dedicava il saggio di apertura dell'annuario Tirature a una nascente voga di "ritorno alla realtà" del panorama editoriale italiano. Il saggio era intitolato «Raccontare senza inventare» ed era centrato su «libri di memorie, inchieste cronachistiche, biografie più o meno romanzate» che coniugassero il resoconto di fatti reali e di interesse pubblico a un'autenticità significativa del racconto in prima persona, resa tale proprio dalla condivisione di un'esperienza personale.

Это история о советских пингвинах и о студенческих зачетках, об этике и практиках неформальных отношений в Ленинграде 1980-х и Санкт-Петербурге 2010-х, а также о том, как несоизмеримость ценности предметов внезапно становится началом для невымышленных историй и поводом для застольных рассказов. Я расскажу вам об одном императорском пингвине: о птице, которая однажды погибла, была найдена, продана, куплена, стала чучелом, заброшена, найдена, украдена и подарена вновь.
[Перевод статьи "How Grades Had Been Gotten for Penguins and Money" (2017 Anthropology and Humanism 42 (1): 127–34.]

Motha’s (2014) and Sayer’s (2012) books both shed light on the ways ideologies on race and language often shape perceptions of identity and legitimacy in the lives of English language teachers. These books complement each other, as they both use ethnographic methods to illuminate and illustrate many of the tensions and forces at work in teaching English, both inside and outside the United States. Departing from traditional book reviews, this one considers two books simultaneously. This dual review begins with an overview of the aims and chapter summaries from Sayer’s (2012) book, followed by a similar overview of Motha’s (2014) book. A discussion follows on the pair’s similarities, some benefits of their juxtaposition, and their contribution to the discussion in the literature. Events in both books exemplify concepts discussed in Bourdieu and Passeron (1990), Lemke (1995), Norton (2000), and Canagarajah (2004). Both books add to discussions on identity, racism, what it means to be a native speaker (NS), and language ideologies, including dichotomies that both authors contest.

*Please note that the creative component of this thesis is withheld.

This project examines how personal storytelling can be used to illuminate and further develop understanding of illness, disability and diversity. Through an exegesis and creative component, it explores the notion that we live on a human continuum, and how the sharing of stories can help to break down the ‘them and us’ and ‘normal and abnormal’ dichotomy so often found in dialogue on illness and disability. The author proposes that personal storytelling can disrupt definitions around normality and instead offer a tool to assist in the development, and enhancement, of empathy.

The creative component of this project is a multi-layered text that examines the experiences of family units living with what was formerly known as Asperger’s syndrome, then high functioning autism, and now autism. Indeed, the lived experience of those on the spectrum can resist well-ordered classification. This section combines the author’s own story as a mother, interviews with other families and individuals, and reflections on the process of researching and writing about autism. Incorporating a critical self-consciousness into her writing, the author ruminates on the complexities of parenting a son who is ‘on the spectrum’ by adopting a “wondering gaze”, as Max van Manen (2002) terms it, with the answers found in the “experience of writing itself” or in this “writerly space where reigns the ultimate incomprehensibility of things…the uncanny rumble of existence itself” (p. 243).

The exegesis discusses the altruistic motivation for using self-reflexive writing techniques in narrative representations of illness and disability. As sociologist Marjorie L. DeVault (1997) writes: “[personal writing] makes excluded voices ‘hearable’ within a dominant discourse” and “is useful for exploring the unexpected and thus for bringing to light aspects of ‘ordinary’ experience that are typically obscured” (p. 226). It is particularly important to address the ‘social’ and the ‘ordinary’ everyday experiences within illness and disability because they are often neglected in the medical setting. Yet such experiences are what make a person whole—they are, of course, so much more than their physical symptoms and treatments (Richards, 2008; Carel, 2008).

Through an analysis of texts by parents raising children with disabilities, the exegesis explores the advantages and drawbacks of vulnerable writing about oneself and others. It is proposed that researching and writing with reflexivity not only allows authors to better understand themselves, but also opens the door to reader empathy, creating a sense of connection for readers and a greater understanding of the ethnographic subject matter by pushing against assumptions and breaking down stereotypes.

Simultaneously, the author applies this knowledge to her creative project to illuminate the nuances of families living with autism. As such, the research provides an avenue that affords some empathy for the people in the stories told, and subsequently becomes a tool for understanding, for it is through connecting with others’ stories, chaotic as they may be, that we make meaning of experiences and sense of our lives (Mattingly & Garro, 2000).

This is an auto-ethnographic and evocative essay on threads as material to think with. It presents four ethnographic vignettes (two academic conferences and a theatre workshop in the UK; a walk in the hills of the Amalfi Coast) that weave personal memories and intellectual reflection. The thread is not simply an object of reflection and the protagonist of the vignettes, but structures the way the text is composed. Writing and remembering as cutting and sewing.