Birkbeck College, Part of the University of London, Is a Unique Launching Pad for New Literary Talent
Birkbeck College, rated a 6*, the highest attainable from the UK Research Assessment Exercise, is now a training ground for some of the UK and USA's most promising literary talent, including the rising American talent Xiao En, author of The Empire Menaced.
(PRWEB) June 6, 2005 -- Since its founding in 1823, Birkbeck College has
always had a reputation for academic excellence. It is currently ranked among
the leading UK university institutions for its programs in the humanities,
social sciences and natural sciences. Now it can also claim a new status — as a
training ground for some of the UK and USA’s most promising literary
talent.
Birkbeck College specializes in offering high quality education
to adult learners. Most of the classes are part-time in the evening, to
accommodate busy professional lives. In 1823, Birkbeck’s founder, Dr. George
Birkbeck, had the foresight to see the need for an institution that catered to
adult learners looking to develop their careers. Over the following years, the
college has grown and prospered — it currently offers over 1000 continuing
education and diploma courses, undergraduate and foundation degree programs and
over 90 postgraduate programs and research opportunities. More than 85 per cent
of Birkbeck research is ranked as being of international importance.
The
Birkbeck School of English and Humanities recently received a 6* rating, the
highest attainable, from the UK Research Assessment Exercise, putting it in a
class with Oxford and Cambridge. Two years ago, the school also launched a
masters program in creative writing, which promises to train a significant share
of the next generation of British and North American novelists and
playwrights.
But it’s not just the students enrolled in the creative
writing program who consider themselves authors. Xiao En wrote “The Empire
Menaced: the unauthorized autobiography of Dearth Nadir”, his second novel,
while attending a Birkbeck masters program in Modern Literatures. “I wanted to
study at Birkbeck because of its excellent reputation and the quality of
teaching,” Xiao En said. “And I wasn’t disappointed. In fact, The Empire Menaced
was inspired by one of the courses I took there: Dr. Carol Watt’s ‘Text into
Film and Film as Text: Towards a Concept of Adaptation’.”
“This is the
first example I know of,” Dr. Carol Watts said, “of a student completing an
entire novel as part of our one year program. Xiao En then went on to write an
academic article on the project entitled, ‘To menace an empire: the cultural
politics of adapting the Star Wars franchise’. I gave the paper a
distinction.”
Xiao En explained: “As you know, most adaptations go from
novel to movie. In this sense, The Empire Menaced is unusual because the
direction is reversed. It’s a novel adapted from a movie—all six of the Star
Wars movies, in fact, including Episode III. Another unusual thing about it is
that, unlike most adaptations, it’s intentionally unfaithful to the
original.”
And it appears the world is taking notice: over ten thousand
people visited The Empire Menaced web site at http://dearthnadir.com last month.
Visit the Birkbeck
College website at http://www.bbk.ac.uk.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/6/prweb247920.htm