HSY4730

Reading and writing Australian history

(ART)

Graeme Davison

12 points + 2-hour seminar per week + First semester + Clayton

Synopsis: This unit aims to develop craftsmanship in historical prose. through the study of historians, literary theorists and selected historical novelists. The primary orientation of the unit is practical and confessional rather than theoretical. Practical issues include setting the writer in context, story-telling, description, explanation, beginnings and endings, transitions, scene-setting, characterisation, placing oneself in the text, addressing different readerships, documentation and the onus of proof, irony and the use of different voices and tropes, and formal and colloquial prose.

Assessment: Essays and writing exercises (9000 words): 100%