Return to January 2006 Funded Projects

Succour - Biannual Journal of Creative Work

Professor Nicholas Royle

The aim of this project is to create an action-based environment in which students will benefit from a shift from seminar-based activities to practical experience in writing, design and publishing. Only a 'live' project, such as the production of a biannual journal, can give students the chance to learn how to use creativity in a manner analogous to the way in which they will be required to in employment. Students will learn to typeset and design a professional-standard publication; this will involve the acquisition and practical use of skills in Information and Communication Technologies. The students will also be encouraged to use creative and innovative strategies in the promotion and dissemination of the finished journal, the production of which will act as an example of learning-through-making.

It is our intention that the pressurized, communal manner of working that publishing entails will result in learner creativity becoming sharper, more versatile and more mindful of the end product. Creativity will also be improved by the multiple levels of interaction that this project will present to the student: interaction with other members of the editorial team, with new technology, with the readers and with external, deadline-imposing factors such as printing companies and the project co-ordinators. The creativity of contributors will be further enhanced as they gain greater awareness of the contingencies of submitting work and of working with editors. They will also gain confidence from knowing that they have a public outlet, and from seeing their work in print. This kind of confidence can provide a boost to creativity that no purely academic process can simulate.

At the faculty level, this project will give members of staff, involved in the teaching of different aspects of creativity at different institutions, the opportunity to work together, sharing their ideas and experience of teaching the creative arts, effectively creating a cross-university group in creativity. We envisage that the inter-disciplinary and inter-university nature of this project will present opportunities to improve the curricula of creative-practice programmes at both Brighton and Sussex universities. This will be aided by a workshop that will follow the launch of each issue of the journal, at which the student editorial team and the project co-ordinators will exchange ideas on the strengths and weaknesses of that team's work.

This project has arisen in response to a clear need for a journal for the creative work being undertaken by the students of Sussex and Brighton. It is of the utmost importance for these students to gain experience of preparing and submitting work for publication and of reacting to the response of editorial and public audiences. This journal will also give members of staff the opportunity to guide their students in practical rather than theoretical ways. We believe that creativity across the universities will receive a massive boost as a result of having the forum and figurehead that this journal will provide. We also hope that the journal will showcase the results of other projects being funded by the CETL in Creativity, and will be made available in University Bookshops across the country.

The product of this project will be four printed journals and an associated website, to be produced in collaboration between the editorial teams and a specialized web-team, to be made up of students from the Digital Media programme at Sussex and the Computing Studies programme at Brighton. The proceedings of each post-launch workshop will also be used to produce a case report for each issue, in which staff and students will describe the ways in which the project has contributed to learner creativity. The objective of this bid is to fund the journal for two years, after which it is envisaged that the journal, having established an audience, will become self-funded.