Birkbeck College, Part of the University of London, Is a Unique Launching Pad for New Literary Talent

Birkbeck College, Part of the University of London, Is a Unique Launching Pad for New Literary Talent

(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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