Chapter 6: A Transcultural Perspective of Creativity in Academic Writing

Creative writing provides a literary framework and a flexible setting that incentivizes imaginary, symbolic, and metaphoric contents, as well as informal, artistic, and figurative styles, which enable the writer to captivate, provoke, or even entertain a variety of audiences. While this reality represents a refreshing well of opportunities for creative writers, scholars in the social and human sciences found a rationale to raise doubts about the scholarly value of creative writing, especially in regard to its subjective tone and arbitrary organization. Obviously, academic writing is known to be conformist to the rules of scholarly accepted principles that may limit the full release of creativity in ways that are truly liberating and satisfying in the eyes of a creative writer. Consequently, many seem to develop an assumption that creative writing and academic writing cannot dwell in a coexistentially shared universe without compromising the integrity of one another. This chapter intends to channel a counter narrative by arguing that creative and academic writing can foster and nurture a healthy and fulfilling relationship that allows for both scholarly and imaginary expressions. The purpose of this chapter is to explore, analyze, and reflect on the transculturally implications of creativity in academic writing.