About

Based in English within the School of Media, Arts and Humanities, the Centre has developed out of longstanding research and teaching interests at Sussex (especially in Critical Theory) and is by its nature inter- and trans-disciplinary.

The Centre’s activities have close links with MA and PhD study at Sussex, especially students in Creative and Critical Writing and in Critical Theory, but it aims to intermesh with the interests of all students and faculty in English and beyond.

What We Do

The Centre for Creative and Critical Thought is committed to exploring and analysing the relations between the creative and the critical. Teaching and research in the area of creative writing, both in the UK and elsewhere, have grown enormously over the past couple of decades. Work linked to the Centre pursues a range of critical perspectives in this context. We encourage students, colleagues and members of the public to ask: What is creative writing anyway? Why is it now such a popular subject of study at university? Where might the critical study of creative writing lead?

At the same time we are interested in the ways in which great poems, plays, novels and short stories invariably have a critical character as well. And thus we also ask: What is the purpose of criticism? How does critical writing accommodate or perhaps come to be inextricably bound up with creative writing? What is happening to creative and critical writing today?