I Want to Become: My (Own) Reference List

Embarking upon my PhD journey as the Other at the age of 37, I soon became emotionally involved in dealing with the process of not knowing my becoming. Reading and writing, then, create the possibilities of both re-immersing and reinventing the self in the plane of self-referential immanence. Using embodied writing as a method of discovery, this autoethnographic poem exemplifies ‘how to document becoming’, creating new ways of thinking, feeling, and knowing. Through the embodiment of contemporary thinkers and scholars, I (re-)immerse myself in their works, uttering each poetry line through my untold desire of becoming. This creative writing process, in turn, allows for the novelty of knowing and becoming identities, bringing meaning and power into play. By applying Deleuzian philosophy, I realise that the imagination itself can be meaningfully rehabilitated as a productive capacity, of giving me desire and agency, to construct the aspirational self for an imagined terrain of academia.