English and Writing

English is concerned with the critical and historical study of English literature, pursued through a wide range of courses dealing with different national traditions, periods, genres, and themes.

English also offers students the opportunity to study writing through a Creative Writing strand that begins in first year with the Creative Reading and Writing course and continues through to third-year and Honours.

Students also take English courses as part of a Bachelor of Teaching/Bachelor of Arts, through the English Teaching specialisation for Secondary teachers and the English Key Learning Area for intending Primary teachers.

Career Opportunities

English, like most other Arts and Humanities courses, does not provide vocational training for a specific type of employment, but it does help students to acquire what are perhaps the most marketable of all skills:

• Ability to read perceptively
• Ability to write lucidly and persuasively.

Any form of employment in which words matter will value the ability to read and write critically and creatively, but the more common graduate destinations for English majors include occupations in:

The public sector Human resources Education Library and information management Advertising

Journalism Public relations Publishing The media Professional writing

For further information contact Head of Discipline Dr Jesper Gulddal

English Honours

English honours offers students the opportunity to undertake advanced study in English Literature or Creative Writing. The course is designed to allow students to explore critical and methodological issues, and areas of theoretical and technical debate, and how these relate to the activity of reading and writing literary texts.

The Honours program combines seminar work with supervised research and writing. Many students take Honours simply because they want to keep studying literature or creative writing, but Honours also provides students with credentials testifying to their ability to engage in high-quality independent study and is a necessary preparation for postgraduate study.

For further information contact the Honours Convenor Dr Jesper Gulddal

Research Higher Degrees in English

Current topics being supervised

Peter Bower	MPhil	Pub Fact & Fiction: An Exploration of Pubs and Clubs in the Hunter Region
Linda Boulton	PhD	Illness in Memoir
Diane Cousins	PhD	Feminine Face of the Divine
Emma Joel	PhD	Eatdirtzian Geosophy: A study of cognitive geography and narrative
Morgan Long	PhD	The Anonymous Voice: The Influence of the Fantastic in Nineteenth Century Russian 'Realism' on the Representation of Character in Anglo-American Modernism
Julie Mundy-Taylor	PhD	Traditional versus augmented storytelling: current debates in the field.
David Murray	PhD	Words for the Heat of Deeds
Cassandra O'Loughlin	PhD	Ecocritical Theory and the Poetics of Place
Jo Parnell	PhD	Creative Empathy: how writers turn experience not their own into literary nonfiction productions
Sarah Robertson	MPhil	Novella: 'Slipstream' - Critical component - three parts: 'Falling versus Diving'; 'Love, Sexuality, and Stepping off Buildings'; 'The Quotidian and the Sublime'
Maria Luisa Saministrado	PhD	Female Victimhood and Suicide in the Naturalistic Novel

Recent RHD completions

Alexis Antonia	PhD	Anonymity, individuality and commonality in writing in nineteenth-century  periodicals in English between 1830 and 1880. A Stylometric Approach
Sarah Minslow	PhD	Making Sense of Nonsense:  A New Perspective on Children's Literature

 

Academic Staff in English

To view more information about a staff member, including research interests, please select the "web" option to visit that staff member's profile.