I have started my Creative Writing PhD!, into the undocumented history of professional dancers working the cabaret clubs of Europe in the 1980s.
Working title: ‘Reclaiming Cabaret. A haunted autoethnography of real, researched and imagined stories from cabaret past and present.’
This thesis will be an exploration into the methodologies and components that will make up my book, Blond Angel - an autoethnographic account of my life in a small touring cabaret dance company in Italy in the 1980s. I fuse autoethnography, hauntology, and interview data to craft a new form of creative writing, that shifts between private life and stage, reality and fantasy, the seen and unseen. During my research for my Creative Writing MA dissertation (distinction), I found no formal documented accounts of dancers working abroad during this time so the collected interview data will help create an archive of these disremembered voices.
I am also writing researched, fictional stories of the origins of the modern cabaret in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century and will use these stories to queer and disjoint my narrative through magical realism.
I have broken my research into three questions:
1. How can an autoethnographic text fill knowledge gaps in dance history, specifically around cabaret dance companies in Europe in the 1980s?
2. How can magical realism invite the ghosts of cabaret past to haunt and also live in an autoethnographic text?
3. How does autoethnography challenge and queer academia giving rise to, and celebrating individual and marginalised voices?
Autoethnography – a form of self-reflection and writing that explores the researcher's personal experience and connects lived experience to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings. The researcher is also the researched.
Hauntology - a methodology referring to the return or persistence of elements from the past, in the manner of ghosts. First introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1993 book Specters of Marx.
Magical Realism – blurring the lines between realism and fantasy, weaving the imaginary into portrayals of every-day life.
I am looking to raise £18,000 across three years of full-time study (£6,000 per annum). I have secured a student loan and will be matching the crowdfunding amount with my own savings.
Should anyone wish to see a projected income and expenditure, I will be happy to supply details.
All donors will credited in my thesis and will be sent progress reports throughout my studies.
Thank you for reading this and making it all the way through! Please do not hesitate to contact me for further information. For a detailed account of my career history, please visit my website: www.alanmeggs.com
Working title: ‘Reclaiming Cabaret. A haunted autoethnography of real, researched and imagined stories from cabaret past and present.’
This thesis will be an exploration into the methodologies and components that will make up my book, Blond Angel - an autoethnographic account of my life in a small touring cabaret dance company in Italy in the 1980s. I fuse autoethnography, hauntology, and interview data to craft a new form of creative writing, that shifts between private life and stage, reality and fantasy, the seen and unseen. During my research for my Creative Writing MA dissertation (distinction), I found no formal documented accounts of dancers working abroad during this time so the collected interview data will help create an archive of these disremembered voices.
I am also writing researched, fictional stories of the origins of the modern cabaret in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century and will use these stories to queer and disjoint my narrative through magical realism.
I have broken my research into three questions:
1. How can an autoethnographic text fill knowledge gaps in dance history, specifically around cabaret dance companies in Europe in the 1980s?
2. How can magical realism invite the ghosts of cabaret past to haunt and also live in an autoethnographic text?
3. How does autoethnography challenge and queer academia giving rise to, and celebrating individual and marginalised voices?
Autoethnography – a form of self-reflection and writing that explores the researcher's personal experience and connects lived experience to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings. The researcher is also the researched.
Hauntology - a methodology referring to the return or persistence of elements from the past, in the manner of ghosts. First introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1993 book Specters of Marx.
Magical Realism – blurring the lines between realism and fantasy, weaving the imaginary into portrayals of every-day life.
I am looking to raise £18,000 across three years of full-time study (£6,000 per annum). I have secured a student loan and will be matching the crowdfunding amount with my own savings.
Should anyone wish to see a projected income and expenditure, I will be happy to supply details.
All donors will credited in my thesis and will be sent progress reports throughout my studies.
Thank you for reading this and making it all the way through! Please do not hesitate to contact me for further information. For a detailed account of my career history, please visit my website: www.alanmeggs.com