Monash University Handbook 2011 Postgraduate - Course

The Doctor of Philosophy (Creative Writing) is designed to enable candidates to engage intellectually with their creative process and to acquire professional qualifications in the area of creative writing.

The program consists of 100 per cent research. Candidates will be required to submit a piece of their own creative writing together with a critical commentary both of which must be produced during candidature and under supervision. For the purpose of this course, 'piece of creative writing' will be understood to be constituted by a novel or a group of short stories or a play or a group of plays or a sequence of poems or a portfolio of words of various genres. The critical commentary will be understood to be constituted by a piece of critical writing focused on the student's piece of creative writing, the writing of which will itself be considered as an act of research into the nature of literary creativity. The critical commentary will involve thoroughly researching the various aspects of the creative writing project: the characteristics of the genre, the influence of the context and the shaping elements in a work of art.

The objectives of this course are to:

• enable graduates to make an original and significant contribution to culture. Upon the literary invention in their creative work and the scholarship of their exegesis, they will be able to position their work in the context of world production and its discourses
• enable graduates to obtain advanced knowledge and training as creative writers
• enable creative writers to engage intellectually with their creative process and to acquire professional qualifications in the area of creative writing
• encourage candidates to cross genres and link creative writing with both relevant theory and other art forms
• encourage candidates to develop the professional tools needed to write long-form work for publication, and identify and communicate with an audience
• guide candidates to intellectual and academic/scholarly engagement with creativity.

Candidates submit a piece of their own creative writing together with a critical commentary both of which must be produced during candidature and under supervision.

Each component must be no less than 35,000 words, the combined word total of the creative writing and the critical commentary not to exceed 100,000 words or be less than 75,000 words.

Doctor of Philosophy (Creative Writing)