A Doctorate in Creative Writing – is it Rocket Science?

Abstract

I am not asking if it is difficult. It can be. What I am asking is if it is a doctorate in the field of rocket science. Clearly, it is not. In fact, it should not be a doctorate in any other field than creative writing. Yet, over and over again, we find this simple fact misunderstood or misrepresented or misinterpreted. I admit I used to blame colleagues in English and Literary Studies for attempting to bend creative writing study (the methods, philosophies behind the degree, outcomes) to their disciplinary will. But I was wrong – English Literature Departments are not to blame, Literary Studies is not the culprit here. Nor is Cultural Studies, Film and Media Studies, Theatre Studies, Writing Studies, Composition Studies, or Biomedical Studies or Legal Studies, for that matter. If the Doctorate in Creative Writing might as well be a Doctorate in Rocket Science we have no one to blame but ourselves. The reason for this is simple: we have failed so far to create an adequate global conversation about the nature, reasons behind, intentions, range of outcomes, and significance of the doctoral degree in Creative Writing. Let’s face it, it has been around long enough that we can’t just point at colleagues and say (in some form or another) ‘You’re stopping us doing this’. Nor can we today lament the fact that ‘no one gets it’. If no one gets it, then it is because we haven’t been clear enough about it. And if someone/s are getting in the way, somehow, somewhere, then clearly the reasons behind the degree and the results of undertaking the degree are not strongly presented enough by us to those who need to understand its importance. Doctorates – so-called – can be traced back to medieval times in the Western world and were originally a way of formally licensing someone to teach in a university – the licentia docendi (‘licence to teach’). This is to oversimplify the history, but that is basic origin. Some continue to argue today that the reason why creative writing is not suitable for a doctorate is that doctoral study is associated with the sciences, and that creative writing is not a science. Well – not historically, not necessarily and not entirely. Nevertheless, one argument for the existence of the Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) as the ‘terminal degree’ (highest degree in the discipline) in Creative Writing has always been that it was more suited – as a ‘studio’ type degree, an arts practice type degree – to those who would choose to study creative writing. Similar thoughts were expressed when some notable Master of Arts (M.A.) in Creative Writing programmes were launched in Great Britain a half a century ago – that is, that the programme would provide ‘time to write’, or ‘be suitable for writers wanting to focus on their work’. The inference (and sometimes direct statement) being that a doctorate was just not the thing a creative writer should do. Well, here we are, and today there is an entire world of doctoral qualified creative writers – whose doctorates are indeed in Creative Writing, and who are (more or less) attempting to apply what they learnt as doctoral candidates to their work (whether that is in academe or not) and so, to borrow a phrase from the Kentucky Derby, if anyone for one moment thinks this thing can be tethered, that horse has well and truly bolted. The ‘more or less’ is the primary contemporary issue, because many in higher education still do not see the Doctorate of Creative Writing as the primary qualification for teaching Creative