Monash University: University Handbooks: Postgraduate Handbook 2002: Units indexed by faculty
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Graduate Diploma in Biography and Life Writing


General information

Course code: To be advised + Course fees: Local students -- HECS based; international students -- $13,500 + Coordinator: Barbara Caine
This course will explore many of the theoretical and practical issues involved in reading and writing biographies and life stories. It will include practical questions about the accessing of resources and the ways to utilise and design interviews. It will address many of the ethical, moral and legal questions involved in writing biography and life stories. It will also offer students an understanding of some of the ways in which psychoanalysis, feminist theory and post-colonial studies have affected the understanding of biography and life writing. Students will explore the history of biography and autobiography; and some of the different ways in which biographies have been constructed and written. The use of life stories in history and sociology will also be discussed.
The classes will be taught on the Clayton campus. The duration of the course is one year full-time or two years part-time. Students who have completed 24 points toward the Graduate Diploma in Biography and Life Writing may be offered an exit award of a Graduate Certificate in Arts.
Students will be required to take four units offered at level four.

Entry requirements

Applicants require the completion of a bachelors degree in any approved discipline. Those without an undergraduate degree but demonstrable professional experience, in line with current practice, may be admitted to the Faculty Certificate in Biography and Life Writing. If they achieve credit results in this certificate, they can apply for entry to the graduate diploma according to existing faculty policy

Course structure

Level four

Four of the following 12-point units:

Or one other approved 12-point unit

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