Writing & Society Postgraduate Members

Postgraduate students

As part of its commitment to research in writing, the Group offers supervision for candidates for both PhDs and DCAs (Doctor of Creative Arts). These may be scholarly studies of literary topics or authors, or doctoral theses which combine a creative writing component with exegesis. Distinguished postgraduates have included or do include Georgia Blain, Mireille Juchau, Stephanie Dowrick, Peter Kocan, Christopher Kremmer, Belinda Castles, Matthew Thompson and Alexis Wright.

The Group supports an active program of seminars, lectures and conferences designed to provide opportunities for postgraduates to present their work and to discuss relevant issues with visiting academics and other authorities. There are two kinds of seminar: one devoted to postgraduate presentations, the other a general research seminar which features papers on research in progress, delivered by Group members and visiting scholars and writers. Visitors have included Charles Altieri, Susan Stewart, Adam Frank, Mark Macleod, John Frow, Meaghan Morris, Robyn Ferrell, Laura Marks, Li Yao and Bruno Clément.

In 2009, the postgraduate program will be made up of monthly seminars at the Bankstown campus of UWS, each made up of two or three components: a reading group, a writing circle, and a discussion of practical issues.

In the first semester, the theme of the reading group will be “auto-fiction”, and the sessions will examine the crossover genres between autobiography and fiction, history and memoir; in the second semester, the reading group will examine works which combine fictional, essayistic and reflective elements. The reading group will be led by Writing & Society researchers and will also reflect their interests.

The second component in these monthly meetings is a writing circle, guided by established writers, in which postgraduates present their own writing or report on the presentation of their research.

At every second meeting, that is to say every two months, there will also be a practical component on issues such as the role of the exegesis in creative writing PhDs and DCAs, conference presentation, research strategies, editing and other matters relating to publication.

Lunch and refreshments will be provided; funding may be available to assist attendance. The program for these sessions will be posted on this website in January 2009.

Each year we hold a postgraduate soiree, to which prospective graduate students from all universities are invited. For more information please email writing@uws.edu.au.

• download Writing & Society seminar program 
• download invitation to postgraduate soiree, 24 September 2008 
• download invitation to postgraduate forum, "Creative Scholarship: a forum on creative writing in the academy," 22 October 2008
• download list of current postgraduates and their research topics