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New Season of Creation

Dear readers,

It has been a year since my article “Doing Academia Differently” was published. Writing the article had been a transformative experience. It inspired me to design my workshops Creative Writing for Academics, and it pushed me to start working as a creative entrepreneur, staying in touch with academia, but from a different position.

While the article was finding its audience, and after I had had the chance to experience the power of making space for researchers to explore their writings in new ways, I experienced one of the most severe winters of my life and had to shut down for a couple of months.

Reading Katherine May’s Wintering helped me make sense of that experience. I loved the way she pays attention to nature’s capacity to adapt to extreme colds. From afar, it then may look as if nothing happens. But when we look closely, we see all kinds of activities going on: burgeons have formed on bare branches, still closed, but ready to burst open when spring comes. Hibernating animals breathe differently, lower their body temperature, change their chemical balance.

Nature doesn’t stop when winter comes. It adapts; it transforms.

So did I, breathing through extreme nauseas, dizziness, and complete exhaustion that came with pregnancy. I entered a subterranean kingdom, a kingdom where time and space function differently. A kingdom of silence. A kingdom of untold stories.

The extremes of being in a woman body is full of silences and is such an untold story. An untold story that I may start writing, bit by bit, as I resurface into the world. Revisiting what it means to be a mother; revisiting what I do for work; finding new patterns in search of equilibriums.

What’s coming up:

And so, we are now a year later, as I gear towards a new season of creation.

These are a sample of activities I look forward to, and I hope to meeting you along the way:

New workshop for grant applicants:

  • Thanks to a request from Université Saint Louis Brussels, I’ve developed a new writing workshop for grant applicants. The workshop provides tools to uncover the research proposal’s narrative, one of those tricks that tilt a proposal on top.

Sounds like something for you or for your institute? Contact me!

Creative Writing for Academics:

  • I’ll continue providing series of workshop Creative Writing for Academics, with sessions already book for various institutes at the University of Amsterdam, Nijmegen University, and Queen Mary University of London.

These workshops make space for researchers to explore a diverse and creative pallet of writing styles in their academic writing practice. They are open to all disciplines, and welcome researchers from PhD students to full professors.

Sounds like something you need? Contact me!

New concept emerging: The Writing Lab:

  • I’m brooding on a new concept: The Writing Lab, a space of regular meetings for researchers to explore their writing in new, creative ways.

Sounds like something you want? Contact me!

Social Dreaming and Poetry:

  • Following on previous projects on Social Dreaming, I’ll contribute some of my poems to an artistic exhibition on Social Dreaming held at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London. Details will follow, but I already know that the opening is on November 17, 2022.

Stay in touch!

Regards,

Marie

Doing Academia Differently

Loosening the Boundaries of Our Disciplining Writing Practices

Today is the day that my article has been published with Millennium, Journal of International Studies. I love Millennium for their honesty, for their curiosity, for their openness to invite poems and stories on the page of an academic publication. I love them for having embraced my invitation to loosen the boundaries of our academic writing practices, and to publish work (here: my work) that plays with the boundaries of genre, looking for spaces where that which has been repressed is allowed to speak.

This publication is for me an experience of possibilities. I wrote it with my whole self, speaking and writing with generations of scholars who have invested creative practices within their scientific work. The writing felt like a liberative practice that honoured the legacy of generations of women and men who, time and time again, have revealed an honest story of knowledge production and knowledge writing. As Donna Haraway reminds us:

It matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.

Donna Haraway

Writing the article has been a break-through in my own practice, and paved the way for designing my workshops Creative Writing for Academics, as one possible way of enacted the invitation that the article puts forward:

“To allow a more diverse and creative pallet of writing styles in the academic writing landscape, with the aim to recuperate the reparative in both research and writing by allowing the creative to be present, visibly present.”

Marie Beauchamps

You can book a workshop for your research group, institute, faculty, transnational research activities, and everything in-between! Contact me.

In my own story, the article has been a catalyst to transition from working within the structure of the academia to continuing doing academia differently as a creative entrepreneur. My hope is that the stories contained in the article will inspire you to craft your own way of creative practice within your work.

Whether you join a workshop or not, I would be delighted to hear how creativity finds its way in your work. Stay in touch!

Sincerely,

Marie

Here is an antidote to feeling blue about holiday times

It was such a joy to reconnect with friends and colleagues after the holiday. But I was saddened to witness how many of us are filled with apprehension to start the new academic year. The holiday hasn’t been short, but the pandemic weights on everyone’s shoulder, and there is so much to do.

I have an antidote: Inject creative practice into your work.

When I designed my workshop Creative Writing for Academics, I noticed how injecting creativity into our research and writing practice yields power. It brings fun and joy into our work. It unleashes energy to write. It connects us with our intimate stories. And it brings us in touch with the profound questions that inspired us from the start.

Yet making space for creativity isn’t easy. And this is why I keep offering these workshops:

To make space for you to experience a moment of writing where hands-on exercises not only boost your writing practice, but also make you experience your research and writing in a fresh, honest, and relational way.

Join us! During this two-session-workshop, you will invite sensory details on the page, turning your research into a vibrant text where data, concepts, and theories become characters who take you on a whole new journey.

Photo by Neil Thomas on Unsplash

Doing Academia Differently: Workshop Creative Writing for Academics 17 & 24 Sept 13.00 – 16.30 CEST

Make space to explore a diverse and creative pallet of writing styles in your academic writing practices.

The choices we make when we write have profound effects on the reality that we observe. Giving an account of our observations requires a multitude of styles of writing for achieving the greatest accuracy. Finding the most accurate style of writing for a particular purpose sometimes implies letting go of a seemingly neutral style of writing, instead embracing a plurality of voices, such as staging a dialogue or exploring a more poetic style.

In this introductory workshop spread over two sessions, we practice writing scenes, working with sensory details, defining the main characters driving the story of our work, and staging conversations between them. All sessions are designed around sample texts, and include on-the-spot writing exercises. There will be time for peer-review, and we will take time to reflect on what it takes to make space for creativity within our academic work.

What people say about the workshop:

I tried a few similar workshops recently, and I find Marie’s ones by far the best: they are not only extremely helpful but also a pleasure to do.

Chiara, associate professor

This course has inspired me to develop my own writing style in my papers. It helped me to be creative and productive (for it makes one want to write!), and it has given me perspective regarding the use of poetic, experiential and metaphorical language in crafting academic texts.

Rodante, PhD candidate

Resorting to our body feelings and sensations, bringing them to our awareness while entering a scholarly conversation, opens up a spectrum of alternatives to engage in discussion. Thank you for your expert guidance, so human, that allowed me to feel at ease while exploring “the feeling” of theoretical argumentation. Your workshop contributes to awareness in academic writing, to taking responsibility for choices, to freedom, to integrity. A real eye opener.

Marina, PhD candidate

Marie’s expertise lies in the fact that she used to be a highly successful academic, and is now both an inspired writer and a gifted teacher. This combination is what makes her creative writing for academics courses so inspiring!

Ida, PhD candidate

I’m grateful for participating in Marie’s workshops. The creative writing sessions have helped me enter the scenes of my research, and to shape these worlds while I write with all my senses. Marie’s prompts facilitate a somatic opening for engaging with my data in ways that my whole body is there; writing-as-inquiry from this space enhances fieldwork memory, feelings, creativity, and clarity. It has been a joyful experience to learn on-the-spot techniques for doing this. After these sessions, I wanted to keep writing! Thank you Marie for sharing your gifts with us. 

Nadia, PhD researcher

Making the Unthought Known | 23, 28, and 30 April 2021

A series of Social Dreaming matrices – presented as part of the Deepening Creative Practice programme from the Tavistock Institute.

Join us in a collective space to explore intersections and overlaps through the unconscious. Creating new meaning and making connections between dreams and our social context.

More information : https://www.socialdreaming.space/

To book (free) tickets: https://www.socialdreaming.space/tickets

It’s spring! Perfect time to listen to my poem “Ode to the Eggs”

Find the text of the poem below.
 Ode to the eggs
             after Pablo Neruda
  
 Fields,
 beaches,
 ponds,
 and trees
 sing
 as you
 fall
 on twigs
 and bridles,
 feathers,
 moss,
 sludge,
 and sandbanks.
 You hug
 in groups
 of seven,
 thirteen,
 or fifty-three.
 Fragile
 and immobile,
 you lie
 side by side,
 defying
 your
 hungry
 predators.
 Brown
 patches
 or turquoise
 patterns
 become
 a soft
 embrace,
 an act
 of camouflage
 that protects
 your
 burgeons
 of life
 from
 our greedy
 hands
 and
 growling
 stomachs—
 nothing
 can stop
 our appetite
 for
 the
 vital
 protein
 running
 inside
 the elliptical
 shape
 of your chalky
 beige
 shells.
 In the protected
 space
 of your
 nesting
 nature,
 your viscous
 substance
 creates—
 a
 beating
 heart,
 followed
 by
 blood
 vessels,
 a tail bud,
 wings and legs,
 eyes,
 brains,
 beaks and claws,
 feathers and scales.
 After days
 or weeks
 or months,
 you crack—
 in the fields,
 and in the trees,
 on beaches
 and in the reeds,
 creatures
 crawl,
 squawk
 and walk
 tasting
 the air
 and the
 nourishing
 juice
 of
 food.
 Now
 rack
 and ruin
 you stay
 behind
 as little
 dirty
 white dots,
 composing
 compost,
 sand
 and soil.
 Carried
 along by
 flowing
 water,
 you become
 fertile
 ground,
 sediments,
 and the source
 of a new
 cycle
 of
 life.

L’amour, c’est de ne pas avoir peur du vide, d’oser entrer dans le néant. L’amour, c’est ce moment d’écriture engagée dans le temps. Certains l’appellent écriture automatique.

L’amour, c’est de ne pas avoir peur du vide, d’oser entrer dans le néant. L’amour, c’est ce moment d’écriture engagée dans le temps. Certains l’appellent écriture automatique.

Image: Autonomous artists anonymous

« Donne-moi ta plume pour écrire un mot. » La générosité de cette comptine est peut-être au centre de l’activité de l’écrivain.e. Parfois, on a besoin de la plume d’un.e autre pour pouvoir écrire. Ou tout du moins, on croit avoir besoin de la plume d’un.e autre pour pouvoir écrire. Mais finalement, ce n’est pas la plume que l’on trouve, mais un cœur à qui se confier, une âme sœur peut-être. L’écriture s’arrête alors pour le moment d’un câlin. Ce qui reste c’est une connivence, un moment de partage. La porte s’est refermée, on ne les voit plus. Ce que l’on peut voir, c’est notre imagination. Deux corps qui s’étreignent, deux souffles qui mergent en un souffle pour le moment de l’étreinte. Un sourire qui nait, un soupir qui souffle les heures, les jours, les semaines d’angoisse emmagasinées dans le corps, là, juste au dessous du plexus solaire. Ce sont des choses banales, mais même les choses banales se transforment en tension. Le pain trop dur trouvé au petit matin. Le thé tiède. L’eau qui ne chauffe pas, ou qui est trop chaude et brule le bout de mes doigts. Le rythme de la langue qui tremble et qui claque, qui s’élance et se cramponne au dernier morceau de ligne, au dernier son de la tirade à peine entamée. Qu’est-ce qui pourrait apporter de la joie dans ce cocktail de détails oubliés sur le rebord de la fenêtre ? J’entends la voix de Christian Bobin interjeter le texte. « L’amour, c’est un morceau de soleil oublié sur un mur, c’est un fantôme en robe bleue. » L’amour, c’est un éclair qui caresse la peau. L’amour, c’est une étreinte qui ne serre pas. L’amour, c’est le coup de marteau qui nous révèle un monde juste à porté de main, jusque là caché par un rideau d’inquiétudes. L’amour, c’est l’endurance de la dance, la sueur de la valse qui n’en finit pas de tourner. L’amour, c’est le son qui s’estompe pour se transformer en vibrations internes. Ces vibrations qui révèlent le cœur sous la poitrine, qui éveillent un frisson oublié au coin d’une côte brisée. L’amour, c’est l’envie d’en faire encore un peu plus, le monde n’est jamais trop plein d’histoires, il en faut toujours plus pour révéler nos vies et nos destins. L’amour, c’est de ne pas avoir peur du vide, d’oser entrer dans le néant. L’amour, c’est ce moment d’écriture engagée dans le temps. Certains l’appellent écriture automatique, moi je l’appelle écriture créative. Écriture tout court, parce que finalement, écrire, c’est écouter son cœur, c’est-à-dire, écouter les vibrations de mes os qui se mettent à chanter. Mes os se sont mit à chanter par un samedi après- midi brumeux. Je marchais sur la route, portant mon poids en traversant la rivière, tombant sur les pierres. Leur chant se mit à gonfler comme une éponge, absorbant le sol, épongeant le flot, transformant le vent qui tombait sur les arbres de ma trachée…C’est un de mes poèmes qui résonne ici. Écoutez-le en entier, c’est par ici.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog!

A researcher and writer at the crossroads, I love to run the extra mile to uncover the political stories of our pasts and futures.

I’ve created this blog as a platform for crossing genres and languages. It is a space to share the bits and pieces of research that often find no way out; the bits and pieces that lead to the bigger story, whether mine, or yours.

The blog is part of my research project titled “Mobilising Affects: Withdrawal of Citizenship and Politics of Security” that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 839538. The project takes place at the School of Politics and International Relation, Queen Mary University of London.

In a nutshell, my research project focuses on the mobilization of affects in politics of security and the withdrawal of citizenship. I draw on historical cases as the basis for evaluating possible consequences of intensified withdrawal practices for regimes of citizenship today. I combine archival research with working affect across the social sciences and art practices.