A spiral bridge

Commencing tertiary students in writing and communications programs often struggle to absorb literary and cultural theory as it is presented in existing texts. Finding alternate strategies for presenting such material might prove productive. One possible alternate strategy evolved from the preparation of the theoretical component of my PhD thesis, during which I realised that I was telling a story not only about the object of analysis (the creative artefact), but also about the very selection and synthesis of theory for my epistemological apparatus. Forming the view that the discursive and experiential composition of a writing subject is central not only to literary practice but also to critical and theoretical practice, I recognised this as one of the defining attributes of a fictocritical approach, which validates exploration, construction and application of literary theory by using the textual strategies, traditions and conventions of literature itself, so that theory might ‘don the clothing’ of literature and ‘walk about in it’, much as an actor does to understand and interpret a character for an audience. Thus writing literary and cultural theory into a narrative might prove useful for commencing tertiary students, who are likely to be familiar with literary strategies and conventions.