Beauty Is a Thing of the Past: The Idiom, the Monster, and the Democratic Health of Our Disciplines

I will commence by stating “the problem”; my familiarity with it dates back to 2015, when I left the State University of New York at Buffalo to study creative writing at the University of Texas, El Paso, where I currently teach. Coming from an academic field, trained in philosophy and literary theory, I took the word “creative” (this new category that I was in principle authorized to use) as a new symbolic stamp in my writing passport. This diplomatic stamp granted me the right to a certain immunization from the restrictions of tedious quotations, MLA format, and certain creative tolls of having to pay to be published. There is probably no need to say that academic writers also use creativity, and some actively search for a style; they also need images, metaphors, and literary techniques. And insofar as they like having readers, they are concerned with the attractiveness, elegance, and clarity of their writing.