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The article offers information on the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association's call for papers for the Modern Language Association Convention in January 2025. Topics include the bicentenary of William Hazlitt's "The Spirit of the Age," considerations of literary, political, and cultural figures from the Romantic era, and proposals that extend or contest Percy Shelley's views on "the spirit of the age" in his "Defence of Poetry."

This paper seeks to demonstrate the critical utility of the concept of the absurd in the exploration of the combined and uneven apocalypse known as the Anthropocene. Drawing inspiration from absurdist literature, and based on extensive field research, it takes the form of a psychogeographical journey down a non-existent highway in the Peruvian Amazon. The route of this long-promised megaproject is inhabited by people adrift in the midst of meaningless ruins, haunted by spectral infrastructures that were promised but never came, and plagued by monstrous apparitions of extractive violence. Consistent with absurdist method, the paper resists the temptation to leap out of this disconcerting domain into the normalizing rituals of academic sensemaking, and aims instead to grasp and convey the disorienting lived experience of 'space out of joint'. In doing so, it suggests that an absurdist sensibility can contribute to current debates in cultural geography on spectrality, psychogeography, and creative writing, through its emphasis on irrationality and indeterminacy, its exploration of chaotic and disintegrating spaces, and its evocation of fragmentation and disjuncture in the form of jagged shards of stark and vivid prose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The increasing prevalence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) language models, exemplified by ChatGPT, has sparked inquiries into their influence on creative writing skills in educational contexts. This study aims to quantitatively investigate whether ChatGPT's use negatively affects university students' creative writing abilities, focusing on originality, content presentation, accuracy, and elaboration in essays. The research adopts an experimental approach to shed light on this concern. Objective: This study aims to quantitatively investigate whether the utilization of ChatGPT, an AI chatbot, adversely affects specific dimensions of creative writing skills among university students, with an emphasis on originality, content presentation, accuracy, and elaboration. Method: The experimental study involves 600 students from 10 universities, divided into a control and an experimental group (EGp). The EGp incorporates ChatGPT in their creative writing process as an intervention. The study evaluates originality, content presentation, accuracy, and elaboration, utilizing the Wilcoxon Signed‐Rank Test for analysis. Results and Conclusion: The findings reveal a detrimental association between ChatGPT use and university students' creative writing abilities. Analysing both machine‐based and human‐based assessments substantiates earlier qualitative observations regarding ChatGPT's adverse impact on creative writing. This study highlights the necessity of approaching AI integration, particularly in creative writing disciplines, with caution. While AI tools have merits, their integration should be thoughtful, considering the potential drawbacks. These insights inform future research and educational practices, guiding the effective incorporation of AI while nurturing students' writing skills. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: ChatGPT poses an ethical dilemma regarding its use in the field of academiaQualitative claims and opinions have been raised in prior studies regarding its use in the creative writing processPrior studies have both supported and opposed its use but with very limited quantitative approaches while most of the opinions remain qualitativeSome prior studies opine in support of ChatGPT's ability as an authorSeveral factors measuring creativity has been identified by previous studies but a constructive approach in the light of advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) based chatbots like ChatGPT is missing in such literature What this paper adds: An experimental approach to provide a valid quantitative proof of the qualitative claims over ChatGPT's detrimental effect towards creativity in writing, which was absent in prior studiesA multifactor‐based formula to measure creativity in a quantitative formA quantitative view of the factors that are affected in either a positive way or a negative way in a user by ChatGPT, providing a holistic picture to determine its extent of useA statistical and theoretical understanding over an unexplored topic like creative writing in the light of ChatGPTA quantitative proof why ChatGPT should not be considered as an author Implications for practice and/or policy: Educators may implement changes in assigning tasks to students compared to their earlier practices, based on the identified factors that are being affected negatively, to ensure ChatGPT does not hinder a student's creativity at a greater extentThe extent of using ChatGPT should be limited to self‐learning as positive effect was experienced through the experimentPolicymakers may use the findings of the study to impose strict policies in academia for ensuring academic integrity (Example: must use of plagiarism detecting software for checking scripts, assigning tasks to students which require more analytical abilities, providing tasks which are not properly readable by LLM's like ChatGPT such as image‐based questions, case studies etc.) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is interested in the hidden selves that hover silently in the spaces that all human relationships create. It asks how these hidden self-states can find the light of day and suggests that one way is through fictional creative writing. The author shares a piece of fictional writing in which an elusive character—Isobel—appears. This ethereal and fictional manifestation occurs in the context of excruciatingly painful relational experiences in which the narrator describes repetitive and painful struggles for transformation. Speculative attempts to understand the meaning of the fictional material reveal an emerging forward edge and a fledgling sense of agency. But more. It elaborates how the creative writing process offers a different kind of lens through which to locate, elaborate, see, experience and be empathic with our own and, by extension, with our patients' hidden self-states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether creativity can be taught or not has remained an unresolved and recurring topic of debate in creative writing. Writing that is creative and imaginative is distinguished from translation, which is more derivative. However, both activities are creative in their own unique ways. With the intent of fostering creativity in creative writing, I wish to explore the following questions in this paper: Where does translation's creativity come from? Can creativity be facilitated by the opposing forces of derivation and deviation in translation? If so, how exactly? How can a creative pedagogy be based on such disparate elements? In this essay, I argue that the contradictory characteristic of translation being both derivative and derived is consistent with a certain aspect of creativity, making it useful for creative writing. Then, I will propose a translation-based creative pedagogy while examining works from my poetry project that incorporate the practice of translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document presents an in-depth exploration of the challenges and dynamics in discussing Critical Race Theory (CRT) in Texas high schools, particularly in the wake of House Bill 3979, often called the Critical Race Theory Bill. The author, a Mexican female educator, and a recent doctoral graduate, utilizes a unique narrative bridging academic research and practical teaching experiences. Through the lens of Critical Organic Writing (COW) and the theoretical framework of Nepantla, as conceptualized by Gloria Anzaldúa, the paper examines the impact of such legislation on educational discourse and practice. The study employs qualitative narrative inquiry, focusing on the author’s self-narratives and student responses to COW methodologies, to investigate the effectiveness and challenges of implementing COW as a pedagogical tool in politically sensitive environments. This work contributes to broader discussions on education policy, pedagogical innovation, and social justice, advocating for adaptable and inclusive teaching strategies that facilitate meaningful dialogues about discrimination and empower students to discover diverse truths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article establishes the need to develop new University disciplines to increase the creativity based on critical experiences (personal and literary). A definition for «the writer's voice» is proposed. The writer's voice comprehends selfknowledge, a way of perceiving reality and the arts, and, at the same time, it is the creative writing's driving force. The second part of the paper consists of a description of the Creative Writing Master at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, through several examples of literary exercises and teaching methods to stimulate and strengthen each student's voice. This proposal finds itself integrated into the renovation of teaching Humanities in the middle of the so-called Artificial Intelligence era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]