Literature and Creative Writing at Essex

1. Literature and Creative Writing at Essex Chris McCully, LiFTS Insight HE, 17 June 2016

2. About LiFTS • Big department (c.35 staff and practitioners, roughly 300 undergraduates) • Interdisciplinary: Literature, Creative Writing, Film, Theatre Studies, Journalism, each offering its own 3- or 4-year degree (and in many cases, combined degrees) • Vibrant postgraduate community • Visiting speakers and readers

3. Colleagues • Are practising writers, academics, film-makers, journalists and playwrights. Two examples: • Phil Terry’s Quenettes (poems) are this year published by Carcanet Press and will be launched here in Essex • Liz Kuti’s work (Liz is a playwright and writer for radio) was recently heard on Radio 4 • This is why on our website we say that LiFTS is a ‘literary conservatoire’: one of our emphases is on the practical, on performance and/or publication

4. And so… • If your interest is in writing poetry and prose you’ll be encouraged to publish (we have our own in-house journal, Creel) • If you’re a film-maker you’ll make films (= excellent screening facilities) • If you’re a journalist you’ll be encouraged to write good journalism • If you’re a critic you will be encouraged to write and think critically, and be exposed to contemporary critical thinking, too • If you write plays you have excellent rehearsal rooms and a theatre (Lakeside Theatre) available

5. What makes it different from school? • It’s partly a matter of trust: we expect you to organise your own studies …to monitor your own progress… …to use the library and other learning resources independently • It’s partly a matter of contact hours: typically, you’ll have no more than 10-12 contact hours (lectures and seminars) each week

6. Will you have other support? • Every one of our students has a personal tutor, someone with whom to discuss academic progress and problems if necessary • You will also have a peer mentor – someone from your year who will function as a point of contact • And there is also help and advice available from one or more of our wonderful support staff (in the main departmental office)

7. What are the classes like? • Typically (though not exclusively) seminar-based • Seminars usually have 12-30 students • Typical lecture pattern is an hour • Typical seminar pattern is two hours (usually with a break in the middle) • Workshops take place in film, theatre, CW • You’ll be expected to prepare for both lectures and seminars and will of course be expected to submit your own work in workshops: get familiar with zapping your work onto a data stick and to presenting to small groups

8. How is teaching delivered? • Some courses use readers (collections of texts you’ll have to read and study) • Other courses use week-by-week handouts • Other courses use an electronic portal, Moodle (show)

9. The structure of your degree (1) • Broadly, in your first year you’re getting to grips with stuff you really need to know and will follow up to 6 introductory or other courses. Below is an indicative structure (from Lit &CW) Year 1 • Creative Writing Skills • Introduction to Rhetoric • Writing for the Radio • Creative Writing: Tradition and Innovation • Literature: Origins and Transformations

10. The structure of your degree (2) • Year 2 • Approaches to Text • Creative Writing: Theory and Practice • Creative Non-Fiction …plus two or three other options from many courses offered within or outside the department

11. The structure of your degree (3) • Final year • Romanticism: Poetry and Prose (optional) • "There is a Continent Outside My Window" : United States and Caribbean Literatures in Dialogue (optional) • Hollywood Directors (optional) • Creative Writing: Oulipo and the Avant Garde (optional) • The History Play After Shakespeare (optional)

12. Incremental learning • And so very generally speaking, your studies move from ‘Stuff (we think) you really need to know’ in year 1 (= limited range of options) to ‘Stuff (you’ve discovered) you really need to know’ (= very wide choice of options) in year 3 • Across all three years, too, you’re given workshops and other material related to employability

13. Are writers merely useless, long-haired layabouts? • It’s not easy, telling friends and family you’re going to be a writer • Many people seem to think that writing isn’t ‘a proper job’ • And of course it can be very hard, making a living as a writer (critic, novelist, poet, playwright….) BUT….

14. Every society that has ever been… • has exhibited certain forms of culture • These forms of culture include • poetry • art • music • a sense of the sacred

15. Poetry from the earliest times • Epics (Gilgamesh, c.2nd millennium BC) • Greek epics (Iliad and Odyssey, usually ascribed to Homer (c.8th century BC)) • The Vedas (Hindu sacred texts, c.1200BC)

16. Art from the earliest times • Cave art from northern Europe • Earliest known cave art from c.40,000 years BPE (before present era): at this date, large parts of northern Europe were frozen – the image below is from Spain

17. Music from the earliest times • Bone flutes have been found in northern Europe that date back c.39,000 years. The image below is of a flute carved from bone – location Swabia, modern Germany

18. Modern and contemporary forms of culture • So most of what we think of as ‘earlier literature’ can actually be viewed as coming quite late in the human cycle • Above all, studying, reading and writing literature (of whatever kind) can be thought of an entrance to a community • That intellectual, imaginative community (of writers and listeners, and later, readers) stretches back in time for many thousands of years.. • …and also, as far as English is concerned, stretches synchronically to all the English-speaking and –using countries of the world, to the East, the Americas and Australasia • [Note: ‘English literature’ has only been around for c.1500 years.]

19. Making use of earlier materials (1): original work Stood on the shore of the great salt rivers. A mammoth carcase sang in the wind. The problem was floods and what to do with the corpses. Villages no-one had heard of floated past towards Doggerland. Discovered fire when fen became coal, and flint was useful, also for building. Opened the anthology and it was empty. Blamed the others and tried to plug in the lights but there was no electricity. Earth talked and it wasn’t reassuring. Wives farrowed. That passed the time. There were no messages and the sky was lonely. By then it was an issue: how to converse with tundra that had become tideline. Tried to trade it away for a piece of amber but settled for a bone. Pierced it with the tongue of a buckle. That night the ambient gods spoke through a hollowed pipe while the weather hurled from the north-west. Death was a flute in a femur. Children danced. A lake appeared, and giraffes. Music became settlements. (from Chris McCully, The English Funerals [typescript, 2016])

20. Making use of earlier materials (2): translation From Beowulf (trans. Chris McCully, forthc.). In this excerpt, King Hrethel grieves for one of his sons): ‘He seeks, heart-stricken, his son at his home: ‘sees the waste wine-hall, wind-swept places ‘emptied of happiness. The horsemen have passed, ‘heroes rot in earth. No harp’s struck or ‘joy rings in yard as joy did, once. ‘He takes to his bed, tells himself the grief-words: ‘alone; lonely. Too large now every space, ‘courtyard and plain. ‘And so the Geatish king ‘sorrowed for Herebeald …’

21. And very recently, too… Poetry has been seen as offering a new – yet nevertheless very old – platform for addressing issues surrounding human rights and human rights abuses: ‘for it is this medium above all others that so connects our inner and outer voices; both a quiet conscience and a call to arms’ [Shami Chakrabarti, Chancellor, University of Essex, Guardian, 11 May 2016]

22. So if you like the idea of these kinds of creativity…. APPLY TO US • Do your homework: look at the departmental website and work out what kind of degree will be right for you • Remember that we also have options including studying for a year abroad • Attend Open Days and Visit Days in the department: these happen regularly and you (and your family) will meet current students as well as academic staff

23. In your UCAS application… • Your personal statement will be scrutinised (by me and/or academic colleagues) • If we like the look of your application, you will be interviewed • Interviews are generally conducted in group settings. You may be spoken to individually, but how you interact with others will also be important

24. Your personal statement • Avoid gushing. DON’T write ‘I am passionately interested in literature/writing/reading’ • Avoid useless generalisations such as ‘I am passionately interested in the Romantics’ (my reaction to that would be ‘…and have you read all of them?’) • Do include something about your responsibilities inside and outside school and college, and include something about your hobbies, too

25. Your UCAS application • The temptation will be to have your work proof-read and corrected by a teacher, family member or friend. That’s generally wise, BUT • Statements that look too good seem over-manufactured. I’d rather see something in your own words, even if those own words include the odd spelling mistake

26. If in doubt, ask for help and advice • Contact the admissions person at the university of your choice (in Essex and LiFTS, that will probably be me) • And if your results aren’t what you hope or expect, DON’T PANIC. Contact the department immediately and tell us what grades you do have.

27. Thank youEnjoy the rest of the day Questions?