57143 Experiments in Writing

This subject addresses the boundaries of contemporary writing practice as well as looking at the recent histories of innovative literary forms which have influenced both mainstream and avant-garde literature, whether modernist or post-modernist. The subject asks students to research both familiar and unfamiliar generic and practical possibilities within contemporary literary forms, whether of fiction, script, narrative or essay. In particular, it asks students to respond to how new forms of writing are generated by new nonlinear technologies and formats, as well as more broadly by aesthetic sensibilities formed by decades of cinematic, multimedia and intermedia creative practice. Students are encouraged to engage with these emerging and multimedia forms throughout the subject whereby texts, images and concepts are manipulated to create hybrid or ficto-critical forms.

Throughout the semester students produce and critically reflect on their own creative work and practice. Students are encouraged to experiment with form while remaining strongly engaged with the specific materials they have gathered, and the contexts they create or use for publication or performance.

Assessment: In the assessment for this subject, students are asked to undertake a research project which looks at theoretical and contextual issues in the experimental tradition and also to produce their own original work.