Introductory description

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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.

Week 1: Introduction

Week 2: Writing truth

Javier Cercas, The Imposter (extracts: pp13-42 and 167-174)

Jenny Diski, Skating to Antarctica (pp1-38 and 85-103)

Week 3: Writing difference

Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump

Steve Silberman, Neuotribes

Stephen Kuusisto, Planet of the Blind

Week 4: Writing the suffering of others and oneself

Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

Emmanuel Carrere, Lives Other Than My Own

Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Wrestling with the Devil

Sonali Deraniyagala, The Wave

Week 5: Writing people

Oscar Lewis, Pedro Martinez

WG Sebold, The Emmigrants

Salena Godden, ‘Shade’ in Nikesh Shukla (ed), The Good Immigrant

Week 6: Reading Week

Week 7: Writing war
Martha Gelhorn, The Face of War
Helen Parr, Our Boys: the Story of a Paratrooper

Week 8: Writing for change
Arundhati Roy, The Algebra of Infinite Justice
Elizabeth Pisani, The Wisdom of Whores
Gary Younge, The Speech

Week 9: Writing the Future
Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction
Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable

Week 10 Final workshop; Overview

Learning outcomes

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

• To produce written work to an advanced literary standard
• To gain the ability to critically and comprehensively assess, analyse, and contextualise this work as well as the work of others, and through the independent exercise of the aforementioned integration of the creative and the critical, to gain the ability to engage effectively with, and make significant contributions to, current debates on injustice and human rights in the public domain, through both traditional publishing channels and the electronic media.

Indicative reading list

Indicative Reading List – to accompany mini lectures

Javier Cercas, The Imposter (extracts: pp13-42 and 167-174)

Jenny Diski, Skating to Antarctica (pp1-38 and 85-103)

Benjamin Zephaniah, My Life and Rhymes

Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump

Steve Silberman, Neuotribes

Stephen Kuusisto, Planet of the Blind

Karl Ove Knausgaard, A Death in the Famiily

Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

Emmanuel Carrere, Lives Other Than My Own

Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Wrestling with the Devil

Sonali Deraniyagala, The Wave

Hisham Matar, The Return

Martha Gelhorn, The Face of War

Helen Parr, Our Boys: the Story of a Paratrooper

Arundhati Roy, The Algebra of Infinite Justice

Elizabeth Pisani, The Wisdom of Whores

Gary Younge, The Speech

Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction

Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable

Subject specific skills

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Transferable skills

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