Introductory description

This module is designed for students who want to think critically about the practical and ethical challenges of applying their sociological training in writing for non-academic audiences, with a focus on creative non-fiction. It will help them gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between writing for academics and for non-specialist audiences. It will invite students to think critically about their own and others' writing practice, initially by challenging the conventions of academic writing. They will then be introduced to a number of literary genres from creative non-fiction (e.g. Blogging, memoir, investigative and long-form journalism, popular science, true crime) to consider questions of what makes good writing, how literature influences sociological writing, and what role narrative and story have to play in the formulation of sociological argument. Assessment will include an essay (with options to answer academic/critical/reflective questions) and a group assignment, which will involve working towards the publication of at least one issue of the Warwick Journal of Sociology, a sociologically-themed literary journal. Guidance on the group work (collating, editing and publishing the Warwick Journal of Sociology) will be provided in class during the first five weeks of the module before students take it over in order to publish on their own as a group.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week 1. Why Do Sociologists Write The Way We Do? On the Conventions of Social Science Writing
Week 2. Narrative 101: Storytelling and the Social Sciences
Week 3. Narrative 102: Argument and Creative Non-Fiction
Week 4. Writing in Collaboration: Editing and the Role of Peer Review
Week 5: Sociology in Translation: Writing Across Disciplines, Genres and Languages
Week 6. Reading Week
Week 7. Writing About Real Lives: Ethnography, Memoir and the Autobiographical Novel
Week 8. Writing About Issues: Popular Science, Social Justice and True Crime
Week 9. Writing About Current Events: Blogging, Journalism and the Literary Essay
Week 10. Beyond Academia: Sociology and Popular Writing

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate creative and intellectual experimentation, risk-taking and imagination in composition and language
• Demonstrate editorial skills, including checking, collating, peer reviewing, proofreading and publishing written work online
• Demonstrate how to use social science research to support your writing and abide by relevant ethical issues/rules relevant to the form of their writing
• Demonstrate a critical understanding of the literary influences and the role of narrative in shaping the conventions and norms of academic writing in sociology and the social sciences
• Demonstrate an ability to reflect critically on their own writing practice, whether in sociology and/or a creative non-fiction

Indicative reading list

Achebe, Chinua. 2012. There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra. London: Penguin
Bennett, Karen. 2007. 'Galileo's Revenge: Ways of Construing Knowledge and Translation Strategies in the Era of Globalization.' Social Semiotics. 17:2, 171-193
Berger, Peter. 1963. Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective. London: Pelican
Billig, Michael. 2013. Learn to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Capote, Truman. 2000. In Cold Blood. London: Penguin Books
Carby, Hazel. 2019. Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands. London: Verso
Carey, John. 2015. The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books. London: Faber and Faber
Carey, John. 2015. The Faber Book of Reportage. London: Faber and Faber
Eribon, Didier. 2018. Returning to Reims. London: Allen Lane
Dagerman, Stig. 2011. German Autumn. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
Frank, Thomas. 2005. What's The Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won The Heart of America. New York: Macmillan
Freeman, Richard. 2021. Doing Politics. https://doingpolitics.space/
Gerard, Philip. 2017. The Art of Creative Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Gladwell, Malcolm. 2002. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference. London: Little, Brown and Company
Goffman, Alice. 2014. On The Run: Fugitive Life in an American City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Jones, Owen. 2020. Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. London: Verso
Lasley, Tabitha. 2021. Sea State. London: 4th Estate
Lindqvist, Sven. 2012. Terra Nullius: A Journey Through No One's Land. London: Granta
Mills, C. Wright. 2000. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Oakley, Ann. 2014. Father and Daughter: Patriarchy, Gender and Social Science. Bristol: Policy Press
Orwell, George. 2000. Essays. London: Penguin Modern Classics
Orwell, George. 2021. The Road to Wigan Pier. London: Harper Collins
Prejean, Helen. 1993. Dead Man Walking. London: Fount Paperbacks
Saunders, George. 2021. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading and Life). London: Bloomsbury
Smarsh, Sarah. 2018. Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth. London: Scribe
Steedman, Carolyn. 1987. Landscape for a Good Woman: A Tale of Two Lives. New Brunswick, NJ: Routledge University Press
Steinbeck, John. 2001. Once There Was A War. London: Penguin Modern Classics
Sword, Helen. 2012. Stylish Academic Writing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Vance, J. D. 2017. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. London: William Collins
Woollett, Lisa. 2020. Rag and Bone: A family history of what we've thrown away. London: John Murray

Selected articles from the London Review of Books, The Guardian (long reads), Times Literary Supplement, The New Yorker and The Paris Review.

Research element

For those students who choose the option of writing a creative + reflective piece as part of the assessment, there is an opportunity for them to conduct their own independent research as part of writing the short creative piece.

Interdisciplinary

The module will engage with relevant scholarly and creative works from a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, English literature (especially creative non-fiction, such as memoir, popular science, true crime, etc), cultural studies, history, journalism, politics, philosophy and social anthropology.

International

The module is international in scope as we will be reading texts (Blogposts, journalism, long-form creative non-fiction) from a range of sociocultural contexts from around the world.

Subject specific skills

On completion of this module, students will be able to demonstrate:

1. A systematic understanding of key aspects of their field of study, particularly focused on the interface between the academic discipline of sociology and literary genres of creative non-fiction, including the acquisition of coherent and detailed knowledge, at least some of which is at, or informed by, the forefront of defined aspects of a discipline
2. An ability to deploy accurately established techniques of analysis and enquiry within sociology and applied to their own reading of creative non-fiction
3. A conceptual understanding that enables the student to devise and sustain arguments, and/or to solve problems, using ideas and techniques, some of which are at the forefront of the discipline of sociology in terms of its interface with the narrative techniques of creative non-fiction
4. An ability to describe and comment upon particular aspects of current research, or equivalent advanced scholarship, in both the discipline of sociology as well as a range of literary genres of creative non-fiction
5. An appreciation of the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of both sociological knowledge and (creative) writing practice
6. The ability to manage their own learning, and to make use of scholarly reviews and primary sources, from sociology, other cognate disciplines, journalism and the media and long-form creative non-fiction

Students will also be able to:

1. Apply the methods and techniques that they have learned to review, consolidate, extend and apply their knowledge and understanding, and to initiate and carry out projects
2. Critically evaluate arguments, assumptions, abstract concepts and data (that may be incomplete), to make judgements, and to frame appropriate questions to achieve a solution - or identify a range of solutions - to a problem
3. Communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialist and non-specialist audiences.

Transferable skills

Upon completion of this module, students will be able to demonstrate the following qualities and transferable skills necessary for employment requiring:

1. The exercise of initiative and personal responsibility
2. Decision-making in complex and unpredictable contexts
3. The learning ability needed to undertake appropriate further training of a professional or equivalent nature.