(Rhetoric and Composition Scholarly Dissertation) &A

REWRITING THE CREATIVE: TOWARD A HAPPENINGS THEORY OF CREATIVE COMPOSITON (Rhetoric and Composition Scholarly Dissertation) & THE LAST MONARCHIST: STORIES FROM NEPAL (Creative Writing, Fiction, Dissertation) _______________________________________ A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia _______________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy ___________________________________________________ by KHEM KUMAR ARYAL Dr. Donna Strickland, Dissertation Supervisor (Rhetoric and Composition) Dr. Speer Morgan, Dissertation Supervisor (Creative Writing) MAY 2015 ! The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the dissertation entitled REWRITING THE CREATIVE: TOWARD A HAPPENINGS THEORY OF CREATIVE COMPOSITON (Rhetoric and Composition Scholarly Dissertation) & THE LAST MONARCHIST: STORIES FROM NEPAL "#$%&'()%!*$('(+,-!.(/'(0+-!1(22%$'&'(0+3!! ! presented by Khem Kumar Aryal,! a candidate for the degree of doctor of philosophy,! and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance.! ______________________________________________________ Professor Donna Strickland ______________________________________________________ Professor Speer Morgan ______________________________________________________ Professor Jeff Rice ______________________________________________________ Professor Mary K. Blakely ! ! To my family and friends REWRITING THE CREATIVE To all those who lost their lives in the Maoist conflict in Nepal THE LAST MONARCHIST ! ! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I’d like to express my sincere gratitude to my co-advisors Professor Donna Strickland and Professor Speer Morgan for the patient guidance and mentorship they provided me. Professor Jeff Rice provided me invaluable guidance from the very beginning, and the outside member, Professor Mary Kay Blakely, was inspiring as ever. My heartfelt thanks to them! I very much appreciate the committee’s consistent support and unwavering belief in my work and me. I’d also like to thank Professor Trudy Lewis and Professor Maureen Stanton for being there for me whenever I needed their help. I acknowledge the contribution of visiting authors Karen Russell and Michael Kardos to the making of some of my stories, and also thank my workshop friends who helped me fine-tune my craft of storytelling. Also, I’d like to recognize Professor Helen Foster and Professor Beth Brunk-Chavez of the University of Texas at El Paso for their contribution to my intellectual growth during my year at UTEP. Six of the nine short stories from The Last Monarchist have been published in Hawai’i Pacific Review, Northeast Review, Poydras Review, Query Magazine, Warscapes, and Of Nepalese Clay. I thank them all for making the space for the stories. I also take this opportunity to thank Professor Shreedhar Lohani, Professor Padma Devkota, Professor Mohan Lohani and Professor Krishna Chandra Sharma who always inspired me and provided me much needed guidance and support during my graduate school and university teaching career in Nepal. Finally, I will never be able to compensate for the sacrifices that my son Suyog, wife Rita and my parents made for me to pursue my academic and writerly dreams. Thank you! ""! ! ! TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii List of Figures v Abstract vi PART I 1 Rewriting the Creative: Toward a Happenings Theory of Creative Composition (Rhetoric and Composition Scholarly Dissertation) Introduction 2 Chapter One: Concern for Creativity and the Making of Creative Writing Composition 17 From Creative Composition to “Creative Composition” Creative Writing Composition: The Place of Creative Writing in Composition Chapter Two: Rhetoric, Poetics and Writing Instruction 50 Rhetoric-Poetics Binary and Writing Instruction Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Relationships and Trajectories The Question of Writing in Composition Composition “versus” Creative Writing The Branching of Composition and Creative Writing Creative Writing and the Teaching of Literature Chapter Three: Creative Composition in the Happening 91 The Happening """! ! ! Happenings and Creativity Happenings and Experience Creative Composition in the Happening Chapter Four: Conclusion: Pedagogical and Disciplinary Implications 150 Appendix: Wendy Bishop’s Formulation of Transactional Workshop 176 Works Cited 178 PART II 190 The Last Monarchist: Stories from Nepal (Creative Writing, Fiction, Dissertation) One: The Last Monarchist 191 Two: A Case of Revenge 217 Three: Betrayal of a Golden Watch 234 Four: Maoist in the Village 258 Five: The Displaced 280 Six: Devananda the Soldier 321 Seven: A Father’s Worry 340 Eight: The Village Under Siege 359 Nine: The Politics of a Buffalo Breeder 380 Vita 405 "#! ! ! LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page The Happening as a creative space 140 #! ! ! ABSTRACT Rewriting the Creative: Toward a Happenings Theory of Creative Composition This dissertation explores the relationship between composition and creative writing in the light of the binary of rhetoric and poetics, and addresses the issue of creativity in composition by proposing a happenings theory of creative composition. The proponents of the notion of creative composition call for bringing the two writing fields closer based on the assumption that creative writing would help make composition more creative, hence the term “creative composition.” Wendy Bishop wants to erase altogether the line that divides the two fields, and Doug Hesse advocates for making a place for creative writing in composition studies. This approach disregards the fact that creative writing in the university is about certain genres of writing, just as composition is about other genres. That is, the term “creative” in creative writing does not necessarily invoke creativity any more than any other form of writing does. I maintain that we need to acknowledge the epistemological differences that constitute the two fields as two distinct writing disciplines and that, in order to practice composition creatively, composition studies needs to build on the theories and practices that are conducive to creativity rather than on the creative writing field and the genres that are practiced in it. Building on Geoffrey Sirc’s formulation of English composition as a Happening, I work with Gregory Ulmer’s notion of choral writing and Byron Hawk’s renewed emphasis on vitality in composition to constitute the Happening as a theory of creative strategies. Thus this research reorients the focus of the existing conversation on creative composition away from creative writing and its genres to composition theories and pedagogies that are creative. #"! ! ! The Last Monarchist: Stories from Nepal The nine stories in this dissertation depict individuals’ desperate efforts to keep their dreams intact in times of a national crisis. They are set in remote villages of Nepal and Kathmandu at the turn of this century, at the time when the Himalayan country transitioned from a monarchical state to a new republic as a result of a ten-year-long communist rebellion. On one level, these stories stand as a testament to a bloody war waged in the birthplace of the Buddha, for good or ill. And on another, they depict human frailty as well as resilience among those exposed by a civil war. Lokraj, the protagonist of a story, for instance, flees his village when Maoist rebels demand that he donate them one million rupees to support the so-called “People’s War.” But in Kathmandu, where he rallies against the Maoists, Lokraj finds himself further trapped in the continuing conflict as the rebels kill one of his colleagues and force his daughter, living back in his village, to fight the Maoist war. ! #""! ! PART I Rewriting the Creative: Toward a Happenings Theory of Creative Composition (Rhetoric and Composition Scholarly Dissertation) ! Aryal 2! INTRODUCTION The division of writing instruction in the American university into composition studies and creative writing has troubled many composition scholars. Wendy Bishop claims that it confuses not only students but also teachers of writing; she found the division irrelevant because her pedagogy became more similar as she moved “as a teacher between these worlds of composition and creative writing classes” (“Crossing the Lines” 117). Doug Hesse complains that “the division truncates not only what we teach and research but how writing gets understood (or misunderstood) by our students, our colleagues, and the spheres beyond” (34). Discussing three different fields within the English department—rhetoric and composition, creative writing, and literary studies—as competing for space and domination in the discipline, Tim Mayers argues that creative writing and composition have more similarities than differences, and so they should come closer and their practices should be informed by each other’s theories (30-32). This scholarship arising from the intersection of composition studies and creative writing maintains that both fields will benefit more if we keep “more open borders” (Hesse, “The Place” 43), “eliminate the line [that exists between composition and creative writing] entirely” (Bishop, “Crossing the Lines” 117), “tear down the arbitrary boundaries and firmly establish writing programs that are informed by the dynamics of the creative process” (Moxley, “Tearing Down” 12), or inform practices by each others’ theories (Mayers). ! ! Aryal 3! In the context of the existing gap between the two writing fields and the conflict within

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