UC Santa Cruz offers a concentration in Creative/Critical Writing for Literature Ph.D. students. This is an individualized course of study in which students can write a creative dissertation with a critical introduction or a cross-genre creative/critical project. Our students have completed speculative novels, collections of poems and personal essays, experimental memoirs, biographies, cross-genre work and translations of works of poetry and prose. Descriptions of previous qualifying exam and dissertation topics can be found with student bios here.
In addition to taking critical literature courses, entering students take four graduate creative/critical writing classes (two “Creative Writing Studio” courses and two “Methods and Materials” courses taught by creative writing faculty). The “Creative Writing Studio” is a mixed-genre class that moves beyond the classic workshop mode to give students time to focus on their creative work in a supportive community. The “Methods and Materials” class is a seminar that examines one form, topic, and/or theme. Students can respond creatively, critically or creative/critically. Past classes have focused on autobiographical experiments, race and the lyric essay, the artist’s statement, and James Baldwin’s sentences.
The concentration works to create community while at the same time gives our students opportunities to join with creative and critical colleagues within and beyond the department and division. There are opportunities for internships, fellowships, and graduate students often introduce and meet with writers through the Living Writers Series. Graduate students can also pursue designated emphases in programs and departments such as Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Education, Feminist Studies, History of Consciousness, Latin American and Latino Studies, Philosophy, Politics, Sociology, and the History of Art and Visual Culture. (A full listing of programs and departments offering a Designated Emphasis can be found here.)
The program also offers opportunities for pedagogical training. Graduate students in the Creative/Critical Writing Concentration have the opportunity to teach undergraduate introductory and intermediate creative writing courses annually.
Although our program is fairly new, UCSC has a rich history of Creative/Critical writers and teachers, such as George Hitchcock, bell hooks, Harriet Mullen, Gloria Anzaldua, Nathaniel Mackey, Angela Davis, Karen Tei Yamashita, and Peter Gizzi.
Graduate Students Describe the Program:
- “The Creative/Critical Program facilitates a deep exploration of the critical and intellectual apparatuses involved in the creative process. Prospective students should prepare to excavate their creative practice and process to see how their work speaks to broader critical conversations and how to deepen the questions their work asks and the questions they ask of their work and process. We interrogate connections between ourselves, our work, and the world around us.”
- “What I love about the C/C program, and the UCSC literature department more broadly, is the way it works to break down barriers between the creative and the critical–not just bringing the critical into the creative, but the creative into the critical. It has both helped me to bring a more personal approach–a personality–to my critical writing and more complex ideas to my creative writing.”
- “We practice thinking both creatively and critically and those are often two siloed modes of thinking that we bring together.”
- “In the Graduate Creative/Critical Writing Concentration I’ve gained mentors, colleagues, and friends who are committed to innovation and pushing the limits of critical and creative writing as we know it. The community has welcomed me with open arms and emboldened me to develop my craft beyond what I thought was possible in literature. Joining this program out of an M.F.A. was the best thing I could have done for my creative practice and my personal and professional development.”
Overview
“Creative writing and critical writing disciplines are too often viewed as separate and combative frenemies. When these two methodologies dance together under a full moon, real magic happens—a third entity is born. This third entity, the relationship between the two, is a synergistic understanding that can be lost when one is left to solo without the other” (Kristen Nelson, cw/cr PhD, from “Fleshing the Archive of Witches: A Creative/Critical Case Study of Somatic Synecdoche” published in Feminist Studies)
Please refer to the Literature Ph.D. Program overview for more information.
Entering students complete all the requirements for the Literature Ph.D. with the addition of a creative/critical enhancement to their degree in the form of original creative work, with a critical introduction, and, if desired, work in poetics, translation, form and/or critical writing from the perspective of writerly practices.
Admissions
For applicants to the Creative/Critical Writing concentration, the department requests the following additional materials: 20-25 pages of prose (at least one complete piece and an additional sample preferred), or 10-12 pages of poetry. The writing can be poetry, prose fiction, creative non-fiction, or hybrid/cross-genre.
Requirements
The general requirements for all PhD students apply to the Creative/Critical Writing concentration:
- The Proseminar, Literature 200, to be taken in Fall Quarter of the first year;
- A one-quarter Pedagogy of Teaching/Teaching Assistant Training, Literature 201, to be taken prior to or in conjunction with the first Teaching Assistant appointment;
- Twelve courses leading to the definition of an area of concentration. At least two of these must be in a second-language literature; at least one must focus on pre-1750 literature and culture. Up to three courses may be taken in other departments (in exceptional cases, up to one additional course may be requested by petition); up to three may be independent studies;
Creative/Critical Writing concentration only: Of the twelve courses a total of four courses must be Creative/Critical concentration-designated courses (Graduate Creative Writing Workshops and Methods and Materials); - One two-credit advising course, Literature 291F, per quarter;
- Three-quarters of supervised teaching experience;
Creative/Critical Writing concentration only: Of the three-quarters of supervised teaching experience required, at least two will be in the undergraduate creative writing concentration; - The Literature Department’s intensive three-week Graduate Summer Language Program or equivalent;
- A qualifying exam portfolio (includes an oral component);
- A prospectus outlining and defining the dissertation project;
- A dissertation (written in conjunction with Literature 299, Thesis Research).
Qualifying Examination and Dissertation
At least one member of the QE committee, normally the chair, must be from among the participating core faculty in Creative Writing, and at least one departmental member of the committee will not be one of these. Students in the concentration will meet the requirements of the (revised) Ph.D. program Qualifying Examination, with the choice to substitute original creative work for the Qualifying essay requirement. This work may also be, if the student chooses, a hybrid creative/critical work.
Ph.D. candidates in the Creative/Critical Writing concentration may choose one of two options for the dissertation:
- A book-length original creative project—novel, novella, collection of poems, collection of stories, creative non-fiction, or a hybrid/experimental form (including but not limited to digital/new media, performance/performativity/screenplay, the lyric essay) with a substantial critical chapter of at least 75 pages that locates the work in its literary and historical contexts; OR
- A dissertation on theory, form, poetics or history of the novel/ poetry; a translation; a critical edition.
Faculty
The following faculty are participating Creative Writing faculty mentors: