Critical Writing

Institution: 
University of Technology, Sydney
Code: 
57145
Year: 
2009
Levels: 
Undergraduate

This subject addresses the theoretical and practical aspects of critical writing in the key creative and professional genres: literary journalism, essay writing, reviewing (particularly book reviewing) and literary criticism. Students are introduced to examples of critical writing in magazines and journals as well as in the major newspapers, and are encouraged to engage with the nature of informed critical reading in relation to contemporary writing. The subject aims to increase understanding of how appropriate critical writing responds to significant literary issues, and how it may usefully contribute to debate over these issues. This subject includes examination of significant literary or cultural topics, focusing on specific texts or authors and the writing of a profile, essay or review article demonstrating an understanding of and engagement with the institutional, publishing and media context in which critical writing is produced.

Texts: 
Luhrmann, Baz
Beattie, Stuart
Harwood, Ronald
Flanagan, Richard
Australia 2008 Film/TV
Coetzee, J. M. Diary of a Bad Year 2007 Novel
Sherborne, Craig Hoi Polloi 2005 Autobiography
Tan, Shaun Tales from Outer Suburbia 2008 Selected work
Grenville, Kate The Secret River 2005 Novel
Non-Austlit Texts: 

Kundera, Milan. The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts. New York: HarperCollins, 2007

Graham, Jorie. Sea Change. New York: Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 2008

Sebald, W.G.. Vertigo. London: Harvill, 1999

. Wild Strawberries [film]. , 1957

Organisational Body: 
Communication
Degrees: 
Graduate Diploma in Writing
Master of Arts in Creative Writing
Assessment: 

Assessment item 1: Assessment Portfolio Stage 1

Objective(s):a, b, d, e

Weighting:35%

Task:To select a task or tasks from the overall assessment requirements and submit approx 1500-1800 words of work in progress.

Assessment criteria:Demonstrated ability to:

Write clearly, fluently and persuasively

Engage and maintain the reader's attention

Write to different publication standards (eg: newspaper, academic journal) using expression, language etc suitable for the context

Express opinions and/or reveal characteristics about the topic/subject new to the reader (ie find an original angle on the chosen topic)

Be flexible in conception and approach to the topic/subject

Adhere to required word lengths.

Assessment item 2: Assessment Portfolio Stage 2

Objective(s):a, b, c, d, e, f

Weighting:65%

Task:To submit a portfolio of work totalling approx 5000 words, containing one longer piece as outlined above and based upon class workshopping and discussion with the lecturer. This will include work already submitted as work-in-progress (and revised) for Assessment item 1.

Assessment criteria:Demonstrated ability to:

Write clearly, fluently and persuasively

Engage and maintain the reader's attention

Write to different publication standards (eg: newspaper, academic journal) using expression, language etc suitable for the context

Express opinions and/or reveal characteristics about the topic/subject new to the reader (ie find an original angle on the chosen topic)

Be flexible in conception and approach to the topic/subject

Adhere to required word lengths.

Additional Information
Supplementary Texts: 

* ed. Becket, Fiona and Gifford, Terry, Culture, creativity and environment: new environmentalist criticism, Amsterdam and New York, Rodopi, 2007.

* Bennie, Angela (ed & intro). 2006, Crme de la Phlegm, Miegunyah Press, Melbourne

* Cixous, Hlne, Stigmata:Escaping Texts,London and New York, Routledge Classics, 2005

* Curthoys, Anne & Docker, J. 2006, Is History Fiction?, UNSW Press, Sydney

* Fletcher, Angus, A New Theory for American Poetry: Democracy, the Environment, and the Future of Imagination, Cambridge Mass. and London, England, Harvard university Press, 2004

* Garrard, Greg, Ecocriticsm, London ; New York, Routledge, 2004.

* Harrison, Martin. Who Wants to Create Australia?, Halstead, Sydney, 2004

* Hoy, David Couzens, Critical Resistance : From Poststructuralism to Post-critique, Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2004.

* Jameson, Fredric, The Modernist Papers, London, Verso, 2007

* ed Knellwolf, Christa and Norris, Christopher, The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Twentieth-Century Historical, Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives (Vol 9), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007

* Macintyre, Stuart & Clark, A. 2003, The History Wars, MUP, Melbourne

* Righter, William, The Myth of Theory, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2009

* Saluszinsky, Imre, Oxford Book of Australian Essays, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1997

* Salusinszky, Imre, Criticism in Society : Interviews with Jacques Derrida, Northrop Frye, Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hartman, Frank Kermode, Edward Said, Barbara Johnson, Frank Lentricchia, and J. Hillis Miller, New York : Methuen ; Routledge, 2003

* Sebald, W. G., On the Natural History of Destruction, New York, Random House, 2003

* ed Simons, Jon, Contemporary Critical Theorists : from Lacan to Said, Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, c2004.

Publications for research/reference

* Australian Book Review (published monthly)

* Quarterly Essay: www.quarterlyessay.com

* Griffith Review (published quarterly)

* Meanjin (published quarterly)

* Southerly (published quarterly)

* Sydney Morning Herald Spectrum (published weekly)

* Weekend Australian Review (published weekly).

* Australian Literary Review (first Wednesday each month in The Australian)

* The Book Show (ABC Radio National)

* London Review of Books

* Times Literary Supplement

* New York Review of Books

* The New Yorker

Categories:
Unit Contexts: Critical Writing