106-221 Creative Writing: Travel and Place

It is recommended that students wishing to continue with a major in Creative Writing also complete a first year subject in English Literary Studies as well as meeting the first year Creative Writing prerequisite (see below).

Usually 12.5 points of first year creative writing of either 106-186 Creative Writing: Autofictions or 760-101 Creative Writing: Ideas and Practice. It is recommended that students intending to complete a major in Creative Writing also undertake a first year English Literary Studies subject.

This subject will introduce students to a range of genres that deal with creative writing and its historical and contemporary relationship to travel and place writing. The subject defines both 'travel' and 'place' within a wide framework and will visit diverse journeys and their destinations, such as sopping centres, railway stations, the coast and variations of 'the outback', and 'the frontier'. The subject will engage with travel and place writing from both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while also speculating on the 'place' of travel and place writing within the global economies and cultures of the new millennium. Themes covered in the subject will include both colonial and post-colonial writing; the success of travel and 'tourist' writing within contemporary popular culture; in addition to critiques of travel writing in particular which attempt to produce a subversive 'anti' travel genre of place writing. The subject aims to encourage students to develop both a critical and creative 'eye' and assist them to produce writing that is intellectually original and stimulating.

• have acquired research skills through competent use of the library and other information sources, and the definition of areas of inquiry and methods of research;

• have acquired skills in critical thinking and analytical skills through recommended reading, essay writing and tutorial discussion, and by determining the strength of an argument;

• have acquired skills in thinking in theoretical terms through workshops, essay writing and engagement in the methodologies of the humanities and social sciences.

A 4000 word folio comprising two pieces of writing: one 1500 words 35% (due mid-semester) and one 2500 words 55% (due at the end of the semester) and class participation 10%.

A subject reader will be available from the University Bookshop