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STIBET WS | The Writing Cure: Managing PhD Stress through Creative Writing

When

Nov 11, 2019 from 10:00 to 02:00 (Europe/Berlin / UTC100)

Where

Phil I, GCSC, R.001

Contact Name

Contact Phone

+49 641 / 99-30 027

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This half-day workshop will be aimed at discovering the values and uses of creative writing for confronting the often heavy mental and emotional toll that the busy academic lifestyle takes on researchers. It will aim to help academics practise writing in an entirely different style. It will also help them tap into their creative potential and spur them to develop a style of expression that could add vigour to their overall writing.


Developing a dissertation project is a demanding, often solitary process which does not only engage cogitative, but also affective brain mechanisms and can even send them into overdrive. The cycles of reading, writing, travel, deadlines, fieldwork, and administrative work pose a great challenge to our affective capacities and often leaves little time or mental space to process negative emotions. Practising creative writing can provide a medium for venting such feelings in a playful and creative way. By learning the basics of short poetic and prose forms, the participants will practice thinking of their objects of study in a non-scientific way. The first part of the workshop will focus on poetic expression, how to structure a poem, how to think about descriptions, associations, and constructing metaphors. As output, the participants will try their hand at writing a short poem and will be invited to reflect on their experiences with poetry before and after the workshop.


The second part will revolve around prose and writing very short stories on specific subject matters sourced from the researchers’ work or their academic environment. The workshop input will contain exercises for developing character and plot, and concise and precise descriptions. Participants will be invited to produce a piece on an emotionally or intellectually challenging topic of their choice.


// Marija Spirkovska (GCSC)