Creative Writing research projects
Problem solving and creative thinking
Many writers on creativity have postulated an 'incubation' period in solving problems requiring creative thinking. What happens during this incubation period? How much conscious control is possible? Are there neurological processes identifiable with this 'thinking'. How important is analogical or metaphorical thinking to this process? How might models of creative thinking affect methods of teaching in the creative arts? These are questions at the centre of my current publications in journals, as I work towards a book-length study of these aspects of creativity.
The subconscious and unconscious and the art of creative writing
Examining the proposition that creative work (the genesis or impulse of creative writing) is very much driven or influenced by the subconscious and unconscious, but written in a natural somewhat waking dream- or trance-like state, separate or different from, or in flux with, the conscious, subconscious and unconscious, when the self may become objectified and multifarious or even non-existent. Questions of the psychoanalytic ideas on the subconscious and unconscious as motivators, as well as the ideas of poets and writers on the process and psychology of composition, to be addressed; as well as the central notion of a separate, yet closely related arena of consciousness in the Freudian hierarchy, that refers to the "dream-like" state, this "play" of mind-states, when the waking-dream tends to dominate, but not always exclusively or absolutely. How can this study assist the art of creative writing, and the teaching of creative writing?
More research projects
Further information on the variety of projects in which staff and research fellows are involved is available on their profile pages, which can be accessed from the following pages: