After sending Professor Bennion and Professor Burton a copy of my second prospectus draft I received this email back. It also comments on where I need to improve in the connecting part of this project.
Rachel:
I haven't spoken with John, but I do think some kind of combo of creative nonfiction and blog is possible, and your proposal is getting there, but there are some clarifications needed. Since you are at the end of week four right now, you should probably press ahead as you've proposed in your methods and schedule. I'm happy to see the increased frequency of your blogging and to read the character sketches you've done so far, so press on regardless of proposal issues.
On methodology, since you are taking an anthropological approach and bringing in Geertz, it would seem you really must problematize your methods and modes of representation. You need to define and call into question the legitimacy and authenticity of traditional creative writing, writing that draws upon (exploits?) a population and potentially misrepresents it. In your case, I would expect this to bring in the relationship between the travel essays and the blog (does the latter help address the problems of the former, or merely deepen the distance from the storytellers?). These are all questions you are up for, especially following your Ghana focus.
Tell us more about the benefits or problems of writing in the three modes (private handwritten field notes, blog posts, finished essays). You are an experienced blogger, enough to sense the shortcomings of the medium. Will the finished essays, as a destination point, give the blog better focus? Or will those essays end up making you think of the blog only as an imperfect draft on the way to your "real" product or project?
Creative writers are prone to romanticize through detachment and isolation: I can make anything I want out of my travel experiences because my writing isn't really held to account by a real audience -- and in this case, especially, the people whose stories you plan to tell. Since you've opened the anthropological door, your project begs the question of why you don't let these people tell their own stories, as in an oral history or documentary project. So I think you need to defend the legitimacy of your essays against other possibilities--possibilities made more apparent by the currency, multimedia, and interactivity of the blog format (so well documented in your last field study blog).
What I don't want to see is some loose use of new media because you are comfortable with it. As we talked, your only option in blogging is to take it to a new level, critically and socially. I wouldn't go along with your blog being just a kind of public draft area or secondary publication outlet for the travel essays. How can it be used as an anthropological tool and as an aesthetic tool -- something that engages many audiences, both critical and creative?
I'm interested in Dr. Bennion's views on the travel essays, but I would expect that these not become the private aesthetic exercise that's been traditional for creative theses. You have found out there are immediate audiences for your creative work, and I think you in particular can't retreat from that. Once you take those present audiences seriously, of course, your methodology must change to accommodate the interactivity that is a baseline for Web 2.0.
I do think you are up to the task of a hybrid like this, but it truly must be a hybrid that uses old and new forms to interrogate and refine one another, and it can't just be an easy addition of one to the other. Bring these issues more to the foreground, is my recommendation, and start posting about these problems and issues (post this letter and your response to it). You've already been blogging in this way. Now make your formal proposal be in line with the use of blogging you're doing. (Along the way, I expect you will link to and critique your Ghana blog).
The crucial "connect" part of your project is really just underway (and I am delighted at how you are following Derrick Clements' suggestions so far), and should include debates with your fellow students, for starters. Would Matt argue that your story project would be more legit through film? We can talk more later about that later. If we get the Skype set up, this will open some powerful connecting possibilities that could be worked into your project, too. My point is that the social component is primary from my vantage point (overseeing your digital culture class). And the Honors thesis right now doesn't seriously contemplate that factor, only briefly mentioning it. In short: no audience, no project. I realize this strong critique may cause you to consider not having me referee the thesis, and I am okay with that (really). But just for the class I'm overseeing the social requirement will still be there, and I need to see you really moving that direction regardless of the status of your thesis proposal -- as you are starting to do now. Sorry to push! But we vowed this field experience would take it up a significant level from your prior one, and that was the central criterion we agreed upon before you left.
Dr. Burton
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