Postgraduate Study
MA Wild Writing: Literature and the Environment
"I see the edge of the grey tarmac and every individual blade of grass, I see the
hare leaping out of its hiding place, with its ears laid back and a curiously
human expression on its face that was rigid with terror and strangely divided;
and in its eyes, turning to look back as it fled and almost popping out of its
head with fright, I see myself, become one with it"
(W.G. Sebald, The Rings
of Saturn, writing about a visit to Orford Ness, the sand spit off the
Suffolk coast which was the site of our first field trip in late October 2009)
Wild Writing Field Trips
This new MA programme began in October 2009, the product of an unusual
collaboration between the departments of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies
and Biological Sciences. It offers a unique combination of
science and the humanities, with a focus on writing about the environment; it is
global in its concerns but with a core module focusing on the local region of
Essex/East Anglia; and it is open to students with or without specialist
backgrounds in literary studies or biological sciences.
The programme’s two core modules,
The Wild East and
The New Nature Writing, together offer a full-year
focus on writing about the environment, with the first term's focus being on the
local area. Indicative writers for these
themes include Mark Cocker, Robert Macfarlane, Ronald Blythe, Richard Mabey, and
Garry Kilworth. A special feature of the module will be
field
trips, sometimes led by writers themselves. Assessment can be via essay
or creative writing.
Other modules are drawn from the two departments and include:Literature and
the Environmental Imagination: From East to West in 19th and 20th Century Poetry
and Prose,
Memory Maps:
Practices in Psychogeography,
The Tale: Tellings & Re-tellings,
US Nationalism &
Regionalism,
Sustainability,
Politics and Society.
The programme culminates with a 20,000 word project (or creative writing
equivalent), which enables students to develop an extended piece of work over a
period of six months.
Teachers on the programme include
James Canton, Susan Oliver,
distinguished environmental scholar and writer
Jules Pretty,
and internationally acclaimed novelist and
critic
Marina Warner.
(People interested in The Wild East but
not in the biological science elements of the MA in Wild Writing can take those
core modules as part of the MA in Literature.)
Apply for postgraduate study
Informal enquiries may be made to:
Jane Thorp, Postgraduate
Administrator
Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies
Telephone: +44 (0) 1206 872624
E-mail: thorj@essex.ac.uk