This workshop builds on the concept of focalization and the methods of process-based didactics. Join us for some practical writing exercises, followed by a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of creative practices in an analytic context. Are you interested in literary studies, linguistic, philosophy of language, embodied cognition, aesthetics or cultural analysis? Or do you really want to do some creative writing stuff? Then, this is something for you!

About Ninke

In my artistic work, I try to understand the relation between physical experience and conceptual comprehension. I use my own writing practice to explore physical experience, especially from a female perspective. I often react to or respond to philosophical work, because the abstract images that are created in those articles inspire me to write. An example: I was inspired by Intruder (l’Intrus) by Jean-Luc Nancy, to analyse the ways in which he uses his own experience of a heart-transplantation as a metaphor in his academic writing, and I want to figure out how we can respond to him creatively, through creative writing. I want to explore if strategies used in creative writing can be of aid when trying to comprehend or produce abstract or conceptual thought.

In creative writing, strategies that make use of physical experience and latent or subconscious memory is very common. Through the writing process, sometimes knowledge that was subconscious before, can be inaugurated. This process helps to be in touch with our physical memory. In addition, I am fascinated by the concept of focalization (Mieke Bal). In writing, narrated and narrating consciousness (Clarkson, among others) are fascinating to analyse and explore. I want to understand how a texts’ focalization is related to sensuous perception; to physical experience.