English and drama
Life Story
Module code: Q3328
Level 5
15 credits in spring semester
Teaching method: Workshop
Assessment modes: Portfolio
On this module, you’ll examine how writers have experimented with autobiography and biography to:
- use your own experiences to understand the world
- piece together the life stories of others from the written, visual, oral and material traces they leave behind
- tell the tales of those who do not have archives devoted to their lives
- understand how reliable memory is
- understand how much can we know about other people and ourselves
- tell the story of a collective rather than an individual
- tell non-human life stories and why might we do so.
You’ll go on to create your own experiments. You’ll choose who to focus on and grapple with the political, ethical and aesthetic challenges of telling a life story.
Module learning outcomes
- Respond in creative or critical writing to a range of approaches to biographical and autobiographical writing.
- Learn how to research and craft life stories, drawing on archives, memory, or textual, visual or material sources.
- Learn how to respond critically and creatively to the limitations of source materials.
- Produce innovative creative and critical work inspired by examples encountered on the module.