1997 Swinburne Higher Education Handbook

AL403 Narrative Writing
3 hours per week Hawthorn Prerequisite: (or corequisite
for full-time students) AL400 Reading and Writing Seminar
Assessment: a folio of writing, workshop participation and
exerctses
A subject in the Graduate Diploma in Writing
Objectives and Content
This subject will introduce students to the range of skills
required of the professional writer of fiction. A series of
workshop exercises will develop skills in creating character,
dialogue and dramatic tension. Point of view, voice, form,
style, plot, tone, and description and their place in building a
story will be explored. The importance of revision, listening
to criticism and developing a self-critical stance will be
stressed, together with techniques for developing these
personal skills. Developing skills in critical and creative
thinking and the application of these skills in various
practices of writing fiction will be included: e.g. plugging
into both rational and irrational processes; the role of
conjectural thinking, intuition and luck; the use of analogies,
metaphor, and associative thinking; perceiving and creating
relationships. Emphasis is placed on the participants as
writer and critic.
Recommended reading
Grenville, K. The Writing Book. A Workbook for Fiction Writers.
Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1990
Kinross-Smith, G. Writer. A Working Guide for New Writers.
Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1992
Vargas Llosa, M. A Writer's Reality. Boston, Houghton Mifflin,
1991
AL405 From Book to Film: Textuality and
Discourse
3 hoursper week Hawthorn Prerequisite: AL400 Reading
and Writing Seminar Assessment: essay, script and seminar
participation of folio of m'ting, workshop participation and
exercises
A subject in the Graduate Diploma in Writing
Objedives and Content
This subject explores the relationships between discourse
and reception through the adaptation of texts. It will be
organised around a case study (e.g. multi-media adaptations
of Bram Stoker's Dracula), and involve the examination of
issues of reproduction and authenticity, as well as the
cultural impact of new writing technologies on popular
textual discourse. Students will be encouraged to use and
reflect upon different electronic modes of communication
and delivery, and to utilise computer applications to
produce an adaptation proposal.
Recommended reading
Bordwell, D. and Thompson, K. Film Art. An Introduction. 4th
edn, New York, McGraw Hill, 1993
Chatman, S. Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction
and Film. Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1988
Jung, C. Man and his Symbols. London, Aldus Books, 1964
Ong, W. Orality and Literacy: the Technology of the Word.
London, Methuen, 1982
Stoker, B. Dracula. London, Penguin, 1992
Ulmer, G. Teletheory. Grammatology in the Age of Video. New
York, Routledge, 1989
AL407 Open Subject
Prerequisite: completion of two semester subjects
Assessment: a writing project to be negotiated with the
students's supervisor
A subject in the Graduate Diploma in Writing
Objectives and Content
This subject is designed to accommodate student initiated
special projects. There will be a written contract between
student and supervising lecturer, issued as a preliminary to
enrolment, which will state the project, the form of
assignment and the date of completion of the project. As an
example, this subject offers the opportunity for students to
work in genres such as romance, science fiction, fantasy and
the thriller, where learning opportunities and experiences
exist outside formal academic institutions, with the Nova
Mob, Sisters in Crime, fandom and fanzines, etc.
AM1 04 Texts and Contexts
(Stage 1 subject for both Media and Literature)
3 hoursper week Hawthorn Lilydale %is subject is
compulsory for all students taking Media Studies and/or
Literature. Prerequisite: nil Assessment: continuous
A subject in the Bachelor of Arts
Objectives and Content
How do we represent ourselves in contemporary society?
How do we make sense of these representations? In an age
increasingly dominated by electronic an and
communications, how do we understand the complex interrelationships
between traditional representational forms
(such as novels and plays), mass-media forms (film, television
and radio) and emergent new media (hypertext and
interactive multi-media)?
Through an examination of texts drawn from literature,
film, television, video and new media forms, this subject
aims to introduce students to key concepts that are central
to both literary, film and media studies. Our interest in
studying these texts is not to establish their worth, or
otherwise, as to draw attention to their cultural conditions
of meaning, to our work as readers, to the ways in which we
produce meanings from (or are confused by) texts, and to
the values they embody in their representations.
Recommended reading
Eagleton, T. Literary Theory. An Introduction, Oxford, Blackwell,
1981 -,--
Bordwell, D. and Thompson, K. Film Art. An Introduction. 4th
edn, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1993
Allen, R.C. (ed.), Channels of Discourse: Reassembled. 2nd edn,
London, Routledge, 1993
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Swinburne University of Technology 1 997 Hand book 239