synthesis between creative writing and criticism?

[gatz]

I've heard a few people mention work written in a style that combines traditional literary scholarship with a more 'creative-writing' (or maybe just personal-essay-style) approach. I'm really curious about this style, does anyone have any recommendations?

[asleepawake]

I don't know a lot about this approach, but if you haven't read it, I recommend Nancy Sommers's "I Stand Here Writing."

[hopscotcher]

Just posting to echo the original poster: does anyone know of specific programs/schools?

[Grunty DaGnome]

I know that Brown recently [i believe last year] created a joint MFA/Phd in Creative Writing and Scholarship.

[gatz]

I really liked the Nancy Sommers piece. I'd love to hear more reccommendations, although I know I'm being really vague and maybe have no idea if this is A Thing that Actually Exists

Just posting to echo the original poster: does anyone know of specific programs/schools?

I've seen quite a few schools that do joint phd/mfa but I think that the two disciplines are kept somewhat apart. I'd love to read something that...bastardized?...both forms. in a productive way of course

Edited June 20, 2012 by gatz

[hopscotcher]

Gatz, I just noticed a few days ago (can't believe I missed this)--there is an interdisciplinary studies subforum under Humanities. There's a lot more stuff I'm interested in therein--and maybe you as well, if you're looking for the same sort of thing as me? At the very least you would probably get a lot more responses if you posted this thread in that forum.

Edited July 5, 2012 by hopscotcher

[bdon19]

I am kind of obsessed with stuff that takes a more "creative"/essayistic approach to scholarship/theory/whatever, and read a lot of it for my senior thesis this past spring. I'd highly suggest David Shields's Reality Hunger, which amalgamates (and bastardizes) quotations in a sort of collage format in order to examine questions about contemporary demands for memoir and other forms of realism over fiction. It's a fast read and really fun.

Another essay about the future of the novel that most definitely takes a creative writing approach is Lars Iyer's “A Literary Manifesto after the End of Literature and Manifestos, or Nude in Your Hot Tub with a Good View of the Abyss.” It's on Post Road Magazine's website and is really a beautiful essay.