Tuesday 19 December 2017 10:33am
The 2018 Summer School programme has been released, and boasts 59 papers, 15 of which are new this season.
From the simply interesting, to the practical and essential, academic opportunities are available for all at the University of Otago in January.
Summer School and Continuing Education Director Dr Elaine Webster is excited to be able to offer three literary short courses in the Continuing Education Summer Series.
Creative writing teacher and author Dr Lynn Jenner will assist poetry, memoir or fiction writers experiment with literary essays.
Dr Elaine Webster, Director of Summer school and Continuing Education.
She says essays can be personal, theoretical, political, satirical, light-hearted, heavy with research, poetic, or a mix. They can be short like a prose poem or ten thousand words long.
Attracted by this open-ness and flexibility, many contemporary writers choose the essay form to explore a topic, think about some ideas, or put forward a view.
The Dear Sweet Harry and Lost and Gone Away author will, over a five day course, help students jump-start or extend their essay writing with practical support.
On offer again through the series is Letterpress Printing by Hand for Intermediate and Beginners.
The course is a rare opportunity to work with experts to explore the technique and its artistic properties.
Rounding out the series is Wordsmith Identity, presented by playwright, poet, fiction writer and artist, Caroline Lark.
The course explores identity through writing workshops across five genres: Poetry, fiction, drama, memoir, and autobiography.
Dr Webster encouraged those interested in the series to apply soon as places are limited and fill quickly.
Meanwhile, 15 new papers have been introduced to the Summer School, bringing the number on offer to 59, which have attracted about 1700 students.
Dr Webster says some of the most popular new papers include PHIL106 Radical Philosophy and MATS204 Treasure or Trash: Sustainability of Materials.
Radical Philosophy studies radical ideas about the human condition—about freedom, authenticity, existentialism, nihilism, feminism, and modernity—from the work of Nietzsche, Sartre, and others.
While Treasure or Trash examines the broad and complex challenges associated with sustainability of materials including national and international principles and an investigation of a product lifecycle in regards to material selection, use and the consumer.
Tried and true FORBS201 Forensic Biology and CHEM191 Chemical Basis of Biology and Human Health are once again attracting a large cohort of students.
Dr Webster says student numbers have started to climb, though they are somewhat lower than this time last year, and it is not too late to enrol.
"We look forward to welcoming students into the Summer School at an otherwise very quiet time of the year.’’
Course information:
Continuing Education Summer Series
Summer School
For more information, please contact:
Dr Elaine Webster
Director Summer School and Continuing Education
Phone: +64 3 479 5191
Email elaine.webster@otago.ac.nz
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