Reading in Practice MA
I have always felt that reading is a powerful thing, but the course has helped me think about why that is, and given me the opportunity to explore the connections between literature and life.
Through the work of Professor Philip Davis and Dr Josie Billington in the School of English at the University of Liverpool, The Reader Organisation is involved in the development of this part-time MA degree in Reading in Practice.
The Reading and Practice MA is concerned with the wider and deeper ways in which creative literature ‘finds’ people, emotionally and imaginatively by offering living models and visions of human troubles and human possibilities. The first MA of its kind in the country, it invites open-minded investigation into the role of reading in relation to health – in the broadest sense of that word.
The next enrolment will take place in September 2011. Seminars take place on Thursday evenings, 6-8pm.
I love the whole idea of this MA. It’s too bad that at least part of it isn’t available as online studies, for those of us stuck in North America!
I have long had an interest in bibliotherapy in conjunction with published memoirs. This is a subject that I address in the reader’s guide to coming-of-age memoirs that I spent 25 years compiling: Remembered Childhoods (2007). (I list and describe some 2800 such memoirs in it.) It is wonderful to see the implementation of this academic program!