The real theorist and a failure

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I have been a creative person since I was a child. However, at the beginning of this project, I intended to go entirely theoretical. You know? Being serious for the first time (irony here…) and playing the “real” scholar. Years ago, a colleague told me, “What you do is philosophy, not science.” Another colleague said, about the political implications of my research field, “Pamphleteering is not science.” Today, I can formulate an answer for that in my mind: “What I do is art. The feminist art of building knowledge collectively, aiming at social justice.”

But this thought about what I do came recently. As I said, at the beginning of my PhD, I tried to be a formal academic. Guess what? I failed beautifully! During my Comps, I started to write a short story, which is now published in Portuguese[1]. My motivation was the theories I was studying for my exam and how they would play out in a real-life situation. I wrote a story about a future when all feminist and anticolonial principles were applied, and humanity was freed from all the oppressions we have today: capitalism, violence, prejudice, disease, climate change, starvation, and so on. I will not give any spoilers, but I can tell you the world I imagined was far from perfect and full of different problems.

I wrote this short story when I was trying to write my comprehensive exam. This exam was a painful and lonely process with much uncertainty, but I had a wonderful time while taking a break and writing my story. It was also very effective because I was taking a rest from my academic writing and still thinking about everything I was reading for my comps. At this point, I realized that using my creativity could be a good idea while writing the dissertation. It could motivate me and give me joy to continue working even when drained. This was the first time I flirted with creativity to help me craft my academic work. This was the seed of what became my dissertation after five years of work.

[1] Molina, A. (2024). Gaspar. In Coletivo Uma casa Toda Nossa (Ed). Um Corpo Ainda é Pouco. 1^st edition. (pp. 37–53) Quintal Edições.