Introductory description

CW316-15 Writing the Isles

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

It's hard to write about Britain, the (not very) United Kingdom, the British Isles, the 'unnameable archipelago': England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the other bits, the tax havens and principalities; those who want out, of this and that, and those who want in. This module attends principally to the development of the contemporary British literature of nature and place, urban and suburban as well as rural, and in doing so must navigate the politics of ownership and belonging. We'll read contemporary writing about the complexities of human relationships with place, beginning with the loaded question: where are you from?

Since part of the project of this module is that students should engage with and imagine themselves participants in the most recent writing, the themes of the module will vary a little from year to year, but we will be consistent in attending to the writing of urban space and the interrogation of traditional accounts of 'the city'; to the cultural and literary significance of islands; to the borders and edges that fragment and contain our archipelago.

The activities of Coventry City of Culture may offer opportunities for students to approach their immediate environment in creative ways.

Illustrative plan:
Week 1: introduction: Britain, the United Kingdom, the British Isles Selected poems and essays
Week 2: Where are you from? Estates and selected essays
Week 3: writing workshop Week 4: The Outrun
Week 5: Where do you belong? The Plot
Week 6: reading week
Week 7: Being outside: selected essays
Week 8: Waterlog
Week 9: Where are you now? Writing workshop (Coventry/campus)
Week 10: Who belongs here? The Good Immigrant and other readings

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• students will question the ways in which national and regional British identities are both received and constructed by contemporary nature and place writing
• students will learn from the set texts to conduct their own place-based research and to present their new knowledge in the forms of creative non-fiction prose
• students will use individual study and seminar discussion as points of origin for the development of independent writing practices
• understand and demonstrate coherent and detailed subject knowledge and professional competencies some of which will be informed by recent creative practice in the discipline;
• deploy accurately standard techniques of analysis and enquiry within the discipline;
• demonstrate a conceptual understanding which enables the development and sustaining of an argument or creative interpretation
• describe and comment on particular aspects of recent research scholarship and/or creative practice
• appreciate the uncertainty, ambiguity and limitations of knowledge in historical and literary research;
• make appropriate use of scholarly reviews and primary sources; apply their knowledge and understanding in order to initiate and carry out an extended piece of work or project;
• conform to professional boundaries and norms where applicable;

Subject specific skills

To be completed

Transferable skills

To be completed