Creativity and Writing Pedagogy - Linking Creative Writers, Researchers, and Teachers - Harriet Levin Millan

Creativity and Writing Pedagogy - Linking Creative Writers, Researchers, and Teachers - Harriet Levin Millan

16. Internationalizing the M.F.A. in Creative Writing

Creativity and Writing Pedagogy - Linking Creative Writers, Researchers, and Teachers - Harriet Levin Millan

Rodney H. Jones [+-]
University of Reading
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Rodney H. Jones is Professor of Sociolinguistics at University of Reading. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arkansas and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Macquarie University. His recent books include Discourse and Creativity (Pearson, 2012), Discourse Analysis: A Resource Book for Students (Routledge, 2012), and Understanding Digital Literacies: A Practical Introduction (with Christoph Hafner, 2012, Routledge).
Xu Xi [+-]
City University of Hong Kong
Xu Xi 許素細 (www.xuxiwriter.com) is author of nine books of fiction and essays, most recently Access Thirteen Tales (2011); the novel Habit of a Foreign Sky (2010), which was a finalist for the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize; and Evanescent Isles (2008), an essay collection. She is also editor or co-editor of four anthologies of Hong Kong writing in English, most recently The Queen of Statue Square: New Hong Kong Short Fiction, to be published in 2014 by CCC Press, Nottingham, U.K. In 2010, she joined City University of Hong Kong as the Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English, where she helped to establish and now directs Asia’s first low-residency MFA (Masters of Fine Arts) in Creative Writing (www.english.cityu.edu.hk/mfa). The author holds an M.F.A. in Fiction from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Description

This article explores the prospects for internationalizing the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing, a degree that has gained considerable popularity in the United States in the past half century but has yet to gain much of a foothold in other countries. As part of this exploration, we describe the experiences of establishing the first low-residency Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in Asia at City University of Hong Kong, explaining the justification for setting up such a program with reference to the history of teaching creative writing and the current conditions for literary writing in English in Asia and globally. We also reflect upon the processes of planning, curriculum design, and administrative negotiation and that went into setting up the program and report on feedback from the first cohort of students. The experience of setting up this program is used as the basis for raising a number of more general issues regarding the teaching of creative writing in English in international contexts.

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Citation

Jones, Rodney; Xi, Xu. 16. Internationalizing the M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Creativity and Writing Pedagogy - Linking Creative Writers, Researchers, and Teachers. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 245-259 Nov 2014. ISBN 9781781791165. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=23836. Date accessed: 25 Apr 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.23836. Nov 2014

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