106-451 Writing Nature

This subject is offered jointly by the School of Culture and Communication and the School of Creative Arts

Usually admission to fourth year honours in Creative Writing, the postgraduate diploma, postgraduate certificate or fourth year honours in English or the postgraduate diploma or fourth year honours in Creative Arts.

The subject addresses the interrelationship between ideas about the natural environment and about human nature in the work of writers and the philosophies which inform their work. The subject examines the different ways in which novelists, poets and non-fiction writers have drawn on different philosophic and economic models of the natural environment to represent society and human nature and vice versa. A range of ideas will be addressed from Hobbes and Rousseau through to feminist and post-modern thinkers and writers. The subject introduces students to writing and philosophical issues in the context of current global social and environmental concerns. The subject will examine a range of fiction and literary non-fiction writings.

• be able to apply research skills and critical methods to a field of inquiry;

• be able to demonstrate skills in criticism, textual analysis and writing;

• should be able to communicate oral and written arguments and ideas creatively and/or persuasively.

Class participation and a 10 minute presentation equivalent to 500 words 10% (due in allocated week during the semester); annotated bibliography of 1500 words with a minimum of eight references pertaining to final essay topic or creative writing 30% (due at beginning of Week 7); and a final essay of 3000 words 60% or, in lieu of the final essay, a creative work of 3000 words 60% (due at the end of the semester).

A subject reader will be available for purchase from the University Bookshop