Writing and Place

Wedi cwblhau'r modiwl dylai'r myfyrwyr fedru:

1. Demonstrate an ability to carry out a range of research, focused on fieldwork.
2. Apply to their own work a knowledge and understanding of appropriate fieldwork and research techniques used in writing place.
3. Demonstrate an awareness of individual, social, historic and political approaches to place.
4. Situate their own research within a broad critical context relevant to literary representations of place.
5. Make constructive critical responses to their own and other students' writing, and engage in appropriate revisions/reflections of their own work.

This module pays equal attention to places as geographical and human realities, as well as symbolic constructs. On the first, realist level, students will be asked to explore known and new places and to write up their experiences. On the second, imaginative level, they will be asked to think about the symbolic resonances of certain categories of place (city, forest, seascape, etc.) and how they can apply this to their work. While these two levels will be distinguished for teaching purposes, the interaction between them will also be emphasised: symbolic ideas colour our attitude to real places, and our experience of real places informs the creation of fictional ones.

The module focuses on fieldwork as a form of research in writing place; and as a basis for exploring writing of place. They will participate in group and individual fieldtrips, and carry out further research which will feed into their assignment. Students will read and discuss a range of texts which explore place, write observational pieces and work on designing presentations.

This module will encourage students to use fieldwork as a form of research, enabling them to develop a sense of place in their creative writing. It also will enable them to use their creative and writing skills to promote and market project ideas .

Seminar Schedule:

1. Space to place. An introduction to the module.
2. Fieldwork: The art and practicalities of observation and the role of observation in writing.

3. How does it make you feel? Exploring harmonious and antagonistic landscapes and how these can be used across genre and form.
4. Out in the field. Writing up our experiences.

5. Exploring rural and urban landscapes. Concepts and approaches to different landscapes. Experiences and stories.
6. Out in the field. The role of further research in writing place.

7. Observations to presentations. The practicalities of producing presentations and reflecting upon them.
8. Out in the field: Real Places reimagined.

9. Exploring liminal spaces: thresholds and nowhere places.
10. The presentation and QA: Workshop

Mae'r modiwl hwn yn cydymffurfio a FfCChC Lefel 6