Diagnosis rendered. Crime solved. Case closed. In the mechanics of medicine and justice these expressions hold the tension of superficial claims of closure and deep invitations to question, probe, crack, break, open, reach for the why and how. BBC’s Sherlock dismantles the way conclusions are delivered by demonstrating the value of the investigative process. If the conclusion is a state—a place in which (vs to which)—one arrives, then the mind palace is the process of mapping the experience. In a genre bent on “objectivity” and “realism,” Sherlock defies this expectation and exchanges “the witness” with “to witness.” By using Sherlock as both content for discussion AND a model for composition, this panel explores the value of popular culture in shaping writing pedagogy. In a cultural climate of specialization, instant gratification, top-down hierarchy, deep fakes, and linear thinking, Sherlock disrupts the way one sees, hears, encounters truth. It takes Holmes AND Watson (art and science, convergence and divergence, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction—consilience) to offer truth, justice, answers. Writing pedagogy that embraces the unconventional creates a compound lens—the AND. By focusing on how conclusions are drawn in academic papers and how Sherlock reinforces the need for radical revisioning (intellectual humility), contemplative inquiry (reducing confirmation bias), and multifocal lens (embodied observation), this paper responds to the call for plurality and inclusivity. Using Sherlock as a blueprint for unpacking the writing and research process (and framing the experience in contemplative poetics and queer-feminist-postcolonial-postmodern-critical-theory) encourages student-scholars: to SEE, confront, and remediate bias; to dehabituate process and processing; and to practice engaged attention to cultivate receptivity. A conclusion starts not in the gesture of claiming—neatly tying and packaging results for presentation—but in the pricking of ear and skin, in deep listening.
About the presenterKristen Park Wedlock
Kristen Park Wedlock is an ecosomatic writer of the littoral zone. As a Naropa University M.F.A. graduate, Kristen found the language to investigate samskara. She writes in edges. Cofounder of Precipice: An Inukshuk Collective, she generates somatic writing exercises and coordinates poetry-movement events. When not choreographing in the bathtub or writing in the sand, she is an Assistant Professor of Writing at Georgian Court University.