Creativity is for poets and pop singers, isn’t it? Academic perspectives on creativity in doctoral writing

Abstract

This paper investigates how eight academic research supervisors working in a Faculty of Arts at a research-intensive Australian university understand the notion of creativity in doctoral writing; both in relation to what it is and where it is found. This question was investigated qualitatively through interviews focusing on reader reception to three, short doctoral texts. A framework of indexicality and orientation (Lillis, 2008) was then used to move beyond the text-level and focus on the contextual influences surrounding the writing as it was exposed to its critical readership. The findings reflect varying levels of awareness and receptivity to the presence of creativity in written doctoral work. The paper also explores the perceived location of creativity in these texts for academic readers; namely, whether it resides in the ideas (i.e., the creative thought/content) or whether it was more textually-based (i.e., the creative expression/form of the idea).