Opportunity and Uncertainty: Supervisors, examiners and graduates describe the Critical/Creative Nexus in practice in the Creative Writing PhD at the International Institute of Modern Letters (University of Victoria, Wellington, New Zealand)

Abstract

In December 2014 I held six exploratory interviews with participants in the PhD programme at the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML), Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand to explore the relationships between the critical and creative components of the PhD as understood by these particular individuals. The interviews show a range of opinions regarding the purpose of the critical component, its form, the assessment of the critical and creative components and the degree structure.My aim for this research was to create a feedback loop of information about the critical/creative nexus from people who are members of the IIML community of practice. I hoped also to collect and share practical ideas from graduates, supervisors and examiners on how to work through or with the tensions surrounding the critical/creative nexus. In line with that, the purpose of this report is to make the whole content of the six interviews available so that readers can investigate issues which might be of particular interest to them.