From the Shire to Mount Doom (and back again): The Hero’s Journey as a creative-critical map for PhD candidates
Diary of a Viva Ninja: Day 18
[image error]
‘all candidates undertake a momentous journey’ (Berry/Batty, 2016)
One way of reflecting upon the ‘momentous journey’ of the PhD is to describe it as a fictocritical journey. A useful structural framework, although by no means the only one available is the well-know Campbellian ‘Hero’s Journey’ (familiar to every creative writing teacher and screenwriter, thanks to the repurposing of it for writers in search of ‘mythic structure’ by Christopher Vogler, in his book, The Writer’s Journey. Frustrated by the lack of direct application to the actual experience of the writer in that book, I created my own framework, ‘The Writer’s Quest’, which I explore in detail in Desiring Dragons, but for the purposes of this blog, I’m going to keep it simple and use Campbell’s mythic soup). Berry and Batty, in their article on ‘The stories of supervision’ (2016) offer a playful ‘creative-critical exploration of the creative practice research space’, creating fictional vignettes based upon the Campbell/Vogler template which dramatize the supervisor-student relationship over the course of a PhD. Here, I will simply list the examples that illustrate each stage as I’ve experienced them. It is interesting to note how my mirrors in some ways the journey of my protagonist, Janey McEttrick, in the novel of my research, The Knowing – a Fantasy. This is perhaps not surprising, as I used some of the Campbell/Vogler framework in its construction – although not religiously. Without trying, some of the motifs manifested in the plot – for there is something universal about them. However, I was also keen to subvert the Hero’s Journey (which I discuss at length in my thesis). Here, I will focus on the commonalities, rather than the exceptions.
Without taking the mythic underpinning too seriously – for to do so would seem hubristic (one after all is only a mere PhD candidate!), it is fun to see the echoes in one’s experience with the classic journey. It gives the whole cycle a coherent narrative structure, which feels reassuring at this stage – as I look back with hindsight and try to glean some meaning from the whole process.
Act One
Ordinary World
Associate Lecturer since 2004 – time for a change! And 10 years since MA – felt like my writing needed a push.
Call to Adventure
Advert for the Creative Writing PhD studentship at the University of Leicester. Apply.
Refusal of Call
Failure to get said studentship. Uncertainty about whether I could afford to self-fund it. Decide to go ahead anyway.
Meeting with the Mentor
Dr Harry Whitehead agrees to be my supervisor. We have our first meeting and get on well.
Crossing the First Threshold
I register as a PhD student and begin my studies. Induction in first term. Staying in Leicester with a friend.
Act Two
Tests, Allies, Enemies
I so, with Harry as my guide and mentor (testing, challenging me) I enter the ‘Special World’ of academe and research. I visit archive libraries; present at conferences; submit to peer-reviewed journals.
Approach to the Inmost Cave
Loneliness of the long-distance research student – based in Glos p/t I miss out a lot on uni life, but also experience a lack of a collegial atmosphere or peer-support network on campus. There are about a dozens CW PhD students (apparently) and I meet only 2 or 3 in 4 years. Stress of balancing different jobs/teaching load/research/social life, etc
Ordeal
Overwhelmed by sheer amount of research material; the ever-expanding novel. Lacking critical distance – can’t see the words for the trees. Harry’s critiques get harsher – justifiably – and although I cut tonnes I struggle to write the novel he wants it to be. After a particularly ‘full on’ critique – the coup de grace of the 3rd draft feedback – I feel like giving up. Can’t see much merit in my novel or the whole project.
Reward
Yet Harry encourages me to persist – and I finally pull together the novel and critical commentary with a huge effort throughout the 4th year. By the end of June I submit. Exhausted, I go on a long walking holiday.
Act Three
The Road Back
When I return I start to prepare for my Viva – the last threshold. I have endured academic Mordor and dropped the ‘One Ring’ in Mount Doom, (submission) but now must face … the Scouring of the Shire (Viva)! This is the real challenge – assimilating one’s ‘vision’ into the community. Will it be accepted by the academy? Whatever the outcome, I have changed.
As a poioumenon the novel is a dramatisation of the creative process, so there are encoded within it intentional echoes with my own creative journey – in essence, the effort that one undergoes to produce art; or, in particular to creative writing at PhD level, the challenge of reconciling ‘two worlds’: the creative and the critical. Janey experiences this challenge in a deeply existential way – for she has the gift of the ‘knowing’, aka second sight (literally ‘the two sights’ in the original Gaelic). The original title of the novel was going to be ‘The Two Seeings’ and I realise now that the result of this whole process has been the development of my own creative-critical vision.
Kevan Manwaring
Berry, M. and Batty, C.(2016) The stories of supervision: creative writing in a critical space. New Writing: Vol. 13, No. 2, 247-260
Manwaring, K. (2014) Desiring Dragons: creativity, imagination and the writer’s quest. Hants: Compass Books
