Fictocriticism
Fictocriticism is a postmodern, experimental, often feminist style of writing.
The traditional divisions among the practices of fiction, theory and criticism into stories, essays and critiques tend to be merged with fictocriticism which combines elements of these writing practices into a single text. These texts thus often tell a story while making an argument. They range from avant-gardist prose poems to more discursive metafictional inventions.
A prominent practitioner of fictocritical anthropology is Professor Michael Taussig, an Australian working in the Anthropology Department at Columbia University.
Once Jacques Derrida asked for a name:
We must invent a name for those "critical" inventions which belong to literature while deforming its limits.
The name one could have given him was fictocriticism, but he went on anyway to write, and perform, critically, and sometimes fictionally, for instance by telling stories while making his philosophical arguments.
Fictocriticism might trace its origins to Montaigne, continuing through Barthes and making a different appearance in the New Journalism of Tom Wolfe or Joan Didion. Tending towards the laid-back narrative, the inclusion of the local and singular; the embrace of contemporary culture and media, the name, and the style, have been adopted enthusiastically in Australia and Canada.
See also
References
- Kerr, Heather; Nettlebeck, Amanda (1998). The Space Between: Australian Women Writing Fictocriticism. ISBN 1-876268-11-5.
- Muecke, Stephen (1997). No Road (bitumen all the way). Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press. ISBN 1-86368-181-7.
- Muecke, Stephen (October–December 2002). "The Fall: Fictocritical Writing". parallax (25 ed.). pp. 108–112.
- Somerville, Margaret (1999) Body/Landscape Journals, Spinifex Press.
- Bartlett, Alison (Summer 2006) 'Dear Regina: formative conversations about feminist writing' FemTAP: A Journal of Feminist Theory and Practice1.