UWS: B Arts - English Text and Writing

This unit covers a number of issues within literary and textual studies and creative writing, focusing on the areas of modernism and postmodernism. It considers the historical and cultural contexts of literary and textual production, examines a variety of literary genres and styles, and covers a range of contemporary critical and theoretical approaches.

The production and reception of texts are central to the ways in which we understand the world and who we are. Texts mediate our relationship to the institutions in which we participate, including the media (print and electronic), education, government, families and our private lives. Approaches to Text provides an introduction to understanding the production and analysis of texts. By an exploration of topics such as rhetoric, semiotics, critical discourse analysis, genre, narrative theory and creative writing. The unit develops a set of skills that are vital for interpreting and critiquing texts and textual practice.

This unit will look at aspects of American literature, its history and contexts, from the colonial beginnings of the USA up to the present. Issues to be examined include the problems associated with producing a new literature, struggles for justice and human rights, and the rise and fall of "The American Dream". Texts will include fiction, poetry and drama.

This unit aims to increase students' knowledge of the scope and variety of Australian writing. It examines a range of Australian texts from a number of contexts, usually organised along historical and/or thematic lines, and considers the role of writing - both "high" literature and more popular forms - in constructions of Australian culture. Issues of place, gender and race may be foregrounded, and consideration given to how these influence images of Australia. Film and television texts may also be included or emphasised.

This unit explores a wide range of literary texts created for children, from folktales, fairytales and myths to contemporary examples. It focuses on the relationship between children’s texts, society and culture. The unit will examine a variety of genres and themes, for example, the experience of childhood as constructed by adult authors of children’s texts; post-colonial children’s literature; the emergence and development of distinctly Australian children’s texts; the development of “young adult” literature; the impact of new technologies on children’s literature; and role of art in children’s literature.

This unit will examine the theory, writing and performance of Western Tragedy and comedy. The generic terms "tragedy" and "comedy" will provide signposts for both historical and theoretically modern approaches to a range of plays. Texts selected from the period since 1950 may represent comedy and/or tragedy in popular culture, and may have been written for media other than the stage, such as television and film.

This unit aims to demystify the role of the script in the creative process, and the function of the script in managing resources and labour. It will explore the role of the script in the performing arts, but especially film, video and multimedia production. It is not primarily a how-to course in writing the Hollywood script. Rather, it examines the way the script is constructed by industries and institutions, and the way the scripts organise material, ideas, and performances. The unit considers script-writing not simply as an industrial practice, but as a cultural and textual practice that is open to change. Using theories of literature, drama, and language, the unit investigates the assumptions behind many forms of script-writing. It considers relations between cinema and other art forms. This unit aims to explore how the identity of the script can change with the introduction of new techniques, and how the creative process is affected by different conceptions of script-writing. This leads us to examine different models of production, and ways of working yet to come.

This unit provides students with an advanced understanding of the issues, processes and practical questions involved in the writing of creative non-fiction. It is intended that students will gain both enhanced theoretical knowledge of writing practices and, through workshop participation and practical exercises, develop both their own writing skills and the ability to critique the writing of others on the basis of sound understanding of the characteristics of genre.

This unit extends students beyond the writing of individual stories and poems into larger areas of creative writing, such as the discontinuous narrative, the novella, and the cycle of related poems and/or stories. It involves students in the process of developing a major project from an initial set of ideas, through the stages of drafting to a "finished" product, using workshop techniques, individual interviews and peer critiquing. It aims to give each student some experience of a relationship with readers (fellow students) and an editor (the tutor).

The principal means of communication in our culture is language, it shapes and patterns our world, socialises us, and is fundamental to almost all forms of interaction. Critical Discourse Analysis takes language and text as its objects of study, seeing these as technologies for social interaction, representation and communication. By exploring both the grammatical structure of the English language and its use and development in and for social contexts and purposes within a post-structuralist framework, Critical Discourse Analysis develops analytical, interpretive and critical skills for students. Critical Discourse Analysis has the potential for application in many areas of study and professional work.

This unit offers a survey of one or more of the following: drama, drama on film and film drama. It will examine key concepts in cinema theory, dramatic form and film production. Comparison may be made between theatre texts and film adaptations related to the work of specific dramatists; or drama texts may be considered in themselves (often with the screening of filmed versions of these dramas). Alternatively, film itself will be considered as a disinct dramatic form whose contours will be traced in relation to the work of important directors. Viewing films will form an integral part of this unit and students will be expected to attend screenings of films as well as a lecture and tutorial.

This unit aims to introduce students to some theories of genre and to some textual examples of specified genres. Genres studied will vary from year to year; possible examples include: the romance, soap opera, sci-fi, horror, the Bildungsroman, fantasy, Gothic fiction, reality TV, film noir, lyric poetry etc. Texts may be drawn from across different media (e.g. literature, film, music) and from both popular and "high" culture. Students may have the opportunity to produce work (e.g. creative writing) in relation to the conventions of the genre studied. Students should be aware that this unit involves the reading of a number of literary texts, possibly including pre-twentieth century works.

This unit aims to develop an understanding of how meanings for "home", "homelessness", "homeliness", "homeland" and "exile" are produced by modalities of cultural meaning, such as institutions and their discourses, the media, non-fictional and literary texts. The history of the idea of home will be traced and some theorists who have considered home as imaginary, personal, social, national and global spaces will be studied.

This unit aims to provide third year humanities students with first-hand knowledge of workplaces or research processes related to their chosen filed of study (major), such as art galleries, museums, libraries, local and state government, tourism and administration or in academic contexts. The units will introduce students to various fields in which the skills developed over two years of study in humanities can be applied. It will augment their study and provide much need work experience. The internship placement and/or project will be chosen by the student in consultation with the staff member responsible for the major area and the placement will be overseen and the academic work assessed by the member of staff responsible for the major area of study relevant to the internship.

This unit investigates the social and political discourses of a selection of cultural texts that highlight aspirations, ideals and tragedies of national and global significance. It will explore concepts and manifestations of self, nation, community, empire, culture and art through a study of textual constructions of the individual's negotiation of interacting and often competing ideologies. A range of written and visual texts will be used.

This unit will examine ways in which literature and philosophy interact. It will consider the ways in which literature and philosophy offer important and different ways of thinking. And it will consider the differences between literature and philosophy. Literature will be understood to involve thinking through sensations, while philosophy will be understood to involve thinking through concepts. The unit will examine examples of interaction between literary texts and philosophical texts, considering how literary effects can inhabit philosphical texts and philosophical ideas can permeate literary texts. The unit will consider frequently occurring themes within both literature and philosophy, such as ethics (ways of living and acting).

This unit focuses on literary and cultural history up to the early twentieth century, and may encompass study of a range of texts from classical literature to modernism. Depending upon individual staff expertise, particular emphases will include early modern (sixteenth and seventeenth century), Augustan, Romantic and Victorian literature.

This unit aims to introduce students to important works of literature from the earlier part of the 20th centure. Throughout the course we will be concentrating on literature but will make reference to other art forms (in particular the visual arts) to provice the intellectual context necessary to understanding the ideas of the period. There will be a close study of a small number of important novels or works of poetry from the period, with a close consideration of techniques of writing and the way these techniques contribute to an understanding of the themes in the works.

This unit will engage with the question of how social and aesthetic issues might be seen to interact in films by examining specific questions which are related to cinema history. These issues include the following: aesthetic questions and the relation of art history (and modernism in particular) to cinema history 'between wars' in Europe; the notion of landscape (both physical and psychological) and its relation to modernity in post-war British and American film; post-war European 'art house' films and the way philosophical ideas can be conveyed through images; the movement from modernity to post-modernity, focussing on how 'truth' and 'the real' are both established and undermined in American documentary and fiction films from the late 1960s to the late 1990s.

This unit explores the idea of queering texts - texts that queer or texts that are queered by particular readings. The exploration will be propelled by a consideration of gender, sexuality and/or desire and the process of 'making strange'. This unit explores theories of estrangement, alienation, and dis/placement ranging from Formalist ideas of defamiliarisation and foregrounding in relation to language and other semiotic systems, Brecht's politics of alienation, Bakhtin's work on the body and carnival to contemporary notions of performativity and homographesis. Throughout, the unit will be oriented to the use of language in the literary process of queering.

This unit deals with the evolution of the figure of the detective and of the criminal; the development of an aesthetics of crime from the later 18th Century; the dynamic nature of fiction, film and television genres of detection. Literatures of sensation, detective fictions, true crime writing and the non-fiction novel will all be examined to allow an in-depth analysis of the changing ethical and psychological character of the detective, and of his nemeses. The crime story in film, television and in other new media may also be addressed to facilitate an analysis of changing cultural contexts for the crime story.

This is a "shell" unit, in which new unit content and critical approaches in English, Text & Writing can be trialled. Content will depend on student requirements in conjunction with staff research and teaching interests. The unit might also be used to provide students with the opportunity to undertake primary research or a project in the area of English, Text & Writing.

This unit explores the status and success of the novel as the dominant modern literary form. It examines aspects of the history and development of the novel from the seventeenth century up to the present, along with a range of novelistic texts from one or a number of literary traditions: from classic British and/or American texts to contemporary postcolonial fiction; from the search for the mythical "great Australian novel" to famous and not-so-famous works in languages other than English.

Beginning with “Nisa’”—the chapter of the holy Quran dedicated to women— and a collection of pertinent aĥadiţh, this unit focuses on the impact that Islam’s philosophy has had on various Muslim and Arab cultures by examining literature from throughout the Arabo-Islamic civilization. Students are introduced to a variety of interpretations of the role of women in Islam and how these interpretations are reflected in literary and non-literary texts. Students learn to detect the tremendous influence that Islam has had on Arabic texts and cultures, even those which at first appear to be of a secular nature.

In this unit students explore, critically examine and write in a range of fictional forms. They critique a wide variety of published fiction in order to enhance their understanding of approaches, possibilities and techniques, thereby developing a greater capacity to write and critically evaluate their own work. Students create their own fiction in the form of written exercises and assignments, which they will have the opportunity to workshop in a supportive critical environment.

In this unit students will consider the history and theory of a selection of performance traditions, and write for one or a number of media, including screen (film and television), dramatic theatre, and contemporary performance.

In this unit students examine the various forms, ways and means of writing poetry and, where appropriate, song lyrics. Students are taught to analyse and write poetry from a writer's rather than a reader's point of view, and how there is graft in the craft of poetry, even if techniques and methods vary. The workshop format will give a greater understanding and motivation in the development of the field of writing poetry.