The oppressions of ‘creativity’? Equity and power in emergent global discourses of the Creative Writing (SL) field

Abstract

ABSTRACT In previous papers, I have sought to usher Creative Writing in English into Literary Studies contexts in Korea by responding to rhetorical questions, such as “[h]ow to begin to feel like ourselves in a language we do not quite feel at home in?” (Disney 2011: 7) and, erroneously, “how might [students] do something materially akin to [western] canonical texts set before them” (Disney 2014: 3). On reflection, and after more than a decade in Korea, it is wholly apparent just how uncritically these questions centralize English and, therein, my own unchecked entitlement. Both questions remain as if ethically indifferent to the inherent inter-linguistic, trans-cultural power relations at play within Creative Writing in Non-Native Language contexts (herewith, “CW[SL]”). When calling our attention to the fact that “there is something amoral about teaching English Creative Writing in Asia” (52), writer, researcher, and educator Xu Xi issues a direct challenge: how are native-speaking English-language writer-scholars to be more than unwitting avatars of privilege, performing vectors of dominance (Ritzer 204) in a first language among non-native language-learning writer-students? One suspects answers may well be located inside languages other than English.