This subject aims to introduce students to important works of literature from the earlier part of the 20th century. Throughout the course we will be concentrating on literature but will make reference to other art forms (in particular the visual arts) to provide the intellectual context necessary to understanding the ideas of the period. There will be a close study of a small number of important novels or works of poetry from the period, with a close consideration of techniques of writing and the way these techniques contribute to an understanding of the themes in the works.

This subject introduces students to Australian writers currently at work in the industry. How do Australian writers juggle the business and creative aspects of writing? Where do they publish, what forms do their creative practices take, and how do they survive financially? The classes will be a mixture of guest lectures and interviews in which writers, editors and agents share their experience of writing industries. Students will be encouraged to actively engage with industry professionals, and to engage critically with the work of significant Australian writers.

This subject will be a course of reading, taking in a variety of Australian narratives across the country’s long cultural history. Students will look at art, oral storytelling, film, fiction, poetry and non-fiction, and use these texts as a jumping-off point or inspiration for their own work, simultaneously finding themselves in and creating new spaces in Australian narrative. The subject will consider Indigenous storying, urban and regional literatures, colonial legacies and how these shape aesthetics and narratives of belonging. Does Australia have a national literature, and if so, what does it mean to writers and readers in the 21st century?

This subject investigates conceptual, theoretical and practice-based models used in Creative Arts Research. It introduces students to a variety of important methodologies, including empiricism, experimentation, practice-based research, performativity-as-method, and narrative inquiry. It also focuses on writing as a creative praxis that has an important relationship to all the creative arts. Methodologies will be explored through the analysis of various theoretical and conceptual models that are produced through and applied in creative work. The subject will include the production of a creative work, and a variety of strategies for analysing and documenting this and other creative work, including observation, participation, reflection, contextualisation and representation. The subject also examines the relationships between theory and practice, and it will look at the conditions under which creative arts research is produced, exploring its meanings, effects and affects. The subject is suitable for academic research students who intend to include some non-traditional research outcomes in their work.

This subject consolidates the student’s journey towards producing an extended creative work in Year 2 for the Masters Project. Students are guided in responding to writing exercises set by their tutor and are given feedback on their writing practice. They explore and experiment within different forms and genres, including genres of fiction (such as the short story, the novel, YA fiction and auto-fiction), non-fiction (including the personal essay, environmental writing, memoir and the art of criticism) and poetry (including experimental narrative). This subject progresses towards writing and workshopping a lengthier creative piece, which will form part of the student’s final assessment.

This subject engages with the diverse and growing field of creative non-fiction. Students will read and analyse a wide range of non-fiction forms and subjects such as the personal essay, memoir, criticism, true crime, nature and travel. They will discuss various ethical complexities of telling true stories or representing ‘truth’, and address why creative non-fiction has become one of the most visible and rapidly growing genres in Australian and international publishing. Students will consider voice, form and point-of-view and produce a creative assessment with a view to pitching for publication in an Australian journal.

This subject familiarises students with methods of pursuing and presenting research across the discipline of literary studies as well as with regard to the kinds of research required for undertaking creative writing. It further provides students with the opportunity to explore these methods in their own research or creative practice. The subject is comprised of specific training exercises, which will enable students to develop the research skills necessary to developing for their masters project.

In 2023, this subject is replaced by CART 6004 - Creative Writing practice. This subject familiarises students with the practice of pursuing and presenting research and methods in literature and related forms as well as with regard to the kinds of research required for undertaking creative work. It provides students with the opportunity to explore these methods in their own research and/or creative practice. This subject opens out into workshops in which students work through elements of the work they are developing for their masters project.

This subject introduces the spectrum and variety of contemporary art therapy approaches, as they are taken up with and regarded by diverse participants in a range of community and clinical contexts. Students will critically consider how art therapy is applied and adapted to assist people with particular problems and categories of distress. The emergence and problematisation of clinical populations and client groups will be examined, with a view to developing an art therapy practice informed by critical psychological and social perspectives. An experiential component will provide practical experience in exploring art therapy processes and techniques by working in group situations led by experienced art therapists.

This subject explores theories and practical experiences relevant to art therapy. Consideration is given to the major theoretical frameworks of art therapy, its historical development and group processes. There is a major experiential component which provides practical experience in exploring the process of art therapy by working in a group situation led by an experienced art therapist/s. The process will be explored and examined in relation to the self, to the self as artist and to therapeutic practice.

Research in communication arts utilises a range of investigative procedures appropriate to the theory and practice of each creative arts discipline. This subject will introduce fundamental research languages, methods, and outcomes relevant to the creative arts disciplines, and encourage students to develop approaches best suited to their theory and practice. Students will write and defend a research proposal and paper for a research program: the subject will enable students to apply a rigorous research framework to their work. Students will engage with a range of significant and critical texts which address the broad implications of practices and theories in creative arts disciplines.

This subject introduces art therapy students to an understanding of art psychotherapy theory through the lens of contemporary art and the translation of foundational psychotherapy knowledge and skills into art therapy practice. This subject builds on the micro skills of counselling and psychotherapy learned in Counselling Skills for the Allied Professions, through the scaffolded introduction and practice of art therapy clinical skills during intensive group work supported by staff. The subject also offers an opportunity for students to demonstrate their emerging understandings of art therapy by producing and exhibiting an artwork on a chosen aspect of the relationship between art and psychotherapy.

The Masters Project is the culmination of the Master of Arts in Literature and Creative Writing. Students will build up to being able to complete a long written project. For many students this will be a creative project (creative writing, or related media including music). This involves both the creative work (normally 11,000 words) along with an 'exegesis' that offers a critical overview of the ideas within it (4,000 words). Other students might choose to write a long critical essay in literary studies (15,000 words). There is no class work; rather, students work individually with a supervisor with significant expertise in the area in researching and writing their Project.

This subject investigates conceptual and theoretical models used in Creative Arts Research. It introduces students to a variety of important methodologies, including empiricism, experimentation, practice-based research, performativity-as-method, and narrative inquiry. It will also focus on writing as a creative praxis that has an important relationship to all the creative arts. Methodologies will be explored through the analysis of various theoretical and conceptual models that are applied in and produced through creative work. The subject will include a variety of strategies for analysing and documenting creative work, including observation, participation, reflection and representation. It will also examine the divisions between theory and practice, asking whether theory is in itself a practice that empiricism describes. It will look at the conditions under which creative arts research is produced, exploring its meanings, effects and affects.

This subject will consider the nature of writing in terms of both writing and editorial practice. It will involve the analysis of major works by writers (both of fiction and non-fiction) within particular traditions and communities and reflect on the themes of these works and the processes through which they emerge. It will explore the power of the word to shape our understanding of the world. This reflection will be both theoretical and practical.

In Quarter 4 2023, this subject is replaced by CART 6006 - Creative Non-Fiction. This subject will consider elements of the physical world around us: the phenomena we inhabit which form our sense of self. Focusing on literature and how meaning is created in literary form the subject will consider the interaction between the created world and the real world. It will focus on method and process in writing. In doing this it will engage with ideas from a number of areas, including science, philosophy, and literary theory in considering particular aspects of both our interaction with world, and how it shapes us, and the manner in which art shapes and forces itself upon the world. A specific theme related to the process of creation in art will be addressed.

In Quarter 2, 2023 this subject replaced by CART 6001 - Writers at Work. Literature has always involved playing with language and shaping words into specific forms. The European avant-gardes of the 1910s, 20s and 30s swept aside traditional forms and valued kinds of playing that many cultural institutions and aesthetic authorities of the times regarded as childish. This unit will examine the interactions of play and form in experimental writing. Taking the manifesto as a means for outlining the scope and parameters of experimentation, it will explore a variety of calls-to-action regarding writing and form, and reactions to these in a range of literary forms including short fiction, poetry, and the essay.

This subject will focus on a particular idea or concept that is of major importance to the diverse cultural, artistic and philosophical understandings we have of ourselves. It will then look to explore how the idea operates through these differing understandings and the problems it poses for representation. The theoretical and creative texts examined will focus both on the nature of the idea and how it might be better understood or made use of in creative practice.

In Spring 2023 this subject replaced by CART 6002 - Reading and Writing Australia. This subject will involve a reflection on practice-based research in the arts. It will involve a consideration of how various art-forms might interact and inform one another. There will, then, be a focus on interdisciplinary interaction in the arts: across music, visual arts, and writing, with a strong interest in the potentials of new media. Throughout we will make comparisons with the relationship between sound and text in film, and in the media more broadly.