'Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies'

Explore the urge to create and build new worlds, to share language and stories with others. On our course you work on the craft of writing through a multi-genre approach, through and across a variety of writings from fiction and poetry, to non-fiction, psychogeography, performance writing and beyond.

All writers are first of all readers and all readers are writers, for without the active participation of readers a book is never fully realised. Our BA Literature and Creative Writing offers a unique approach to the practice of reading and writing, combining more familiar British and American perspectives and readings with other influential schools of writing, from the study of tradition and myth to the innovative practice of the Workshop of Potential Literature or Oulipo in France.

Our course combines hands-on practical filmmaking, creative writing workshops, and theoretical and contextual studies. We encourage you to forge links between theory and practice, and to make critically-informed choices in your own creative work through the knowledge you gain of film history, literary classics and writing across a range of genres.

Are you impatient to have it all? No need to choose between subject areas, your degree is balanced equally between the disciplines of Drama and Creative Writing but there will be many modules where the two disciplines come together, for example in modules such as Writing For Radio and Writing for Theatre.

Explore the urge to create and build new worlds, to share language and stories with others. On our course you will reflect on how literature shapes, and is shaped by the world, as well as honing the craft of writing through a multi-genre approach.

Our Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies offers supervision for PhD Creative Writing in all fields of staff research interest within this area. Creative writing is an area of particular growth for us and all genres are catered for, with published novelists, poets, and playwrights on our teaching staff and great programme of visiting writers through the Essex Book Festival to stimulate your imagination.

Our challenging, practice-based course offers you a unique approach to the practice of writing, emphasising innovation and experimentation in your work. On our MA Creative Writing, you deepen your knowledge of literary tradition, exploring different modes and genres in order to develop your own creative and expressive written skills.

Our interdisciplinary MA Theatre Practice provides an opportunity for you to develop advanced knowledge of different processes of theatre-making, international performance traditions, approaches to practice-as-research (PaR), and methods of writing, directing and devising in professional contexts. You will explore a diverse range of artistic approaches, gain insights into related critical discourses and develop an in-depth understanding of the possible interrelationships between ‘practice' and ‘research' – investigating how practitioners at the cutting-edge of the performing arts make their ideas a tangible reality.

Our Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies offers supervision for MPhil Creative Writing in all fields of staff research interest within this area. Creative writing is an area of particular growth for us and all genres are catered for, with published novelists, poets, and playwrights on our teaching staff and great programme of visiting writers through the Essex Book Festival to stimulate your imagination.

Theatre and Drama in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies is led by a vibrant group of playwrights and theatre practitioners who all work professionally in the theatre industry alongside their University teaching. There are five full time staff who specialise in areas such as verbatim theatre, performance, world theatre, digital theatre, theatre of testimony as well as playwrighting.