Literature and Location: Space and Place in Creative Non Fiction
How do writers recreate place - real or imagined? How do readers imaginatively inhabit place? This module explores elements of place writing and New Nature Writing, looking at domestic space, urban space, the countryside and the ‘edgelands’ that lie in-between.
We will encourage you to develop your own creative work and reflect upon the different dimensions of place writing and ‘literature-as-place’. A critical interpretation of texts will allow you to reflect upon the authorial decisions made and the effects you seek in your own creative projects.
Indicative study themes:
- What is place, or ‘place writing’? Who invented it? How does that relate to ideas of space? Recent ideas of wilderness, the old emphasis on walking, the New Nature Writing.
- The archive, the curatorial and the imaginary museum. Key text: Jonathan Meades Museum Without Walls
- The city, the countryside, and the spaces in between. Key texts: Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts Edgelands, Jean Sprackland Strands
- Deep place – the natural world in our midst, and the nonhuman viewpoint. Key text: Charles Foster Being a Beast
- Occupying imaginary worlds: cinema’s parallel universe, and the journey through landscape. Key text: Geoff Dyer Zona