Spring 2017
College Writing Seminars (WRTG 101)
WRTG 101.001, TF 8:10 a.m. – 9:25 a.m.
Feminism & Gender
Professor Maya Brown
What does it mean to be female in our society? Male? Is it our genes? Our anatomy? Our
behavior? How do we define what it means to be a man or a woman? If gender is, as
feminist critic Judith Butler says, “a way of making the world secure,” what do we do
when this dichotomy breaks down? In this class we will be looking at the social
construction of gender and especially what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal
society. We will look at essays, novels, news articles, television, and film to attempt to
understand what gender means in our society and how feminists have navigated these
thorny waters. Through our readings and research, we will explore definitions of gender
and their impact on the individual and society. The major course requirements may
include a personal essay, a researched article, and a final presentation based on your
research.
Texts may include:
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Films and TV shows including Boys Don’t Cry
Additional essays and articles
WRTG 101.002, MTH 8:10 a.m. – 9:25 a.m.
The Language of Food
Professor Kate Wilson
Ever wondered why you are (or aren’t) willing to wait in a long line at Starbucks? Or
why it is you enter the supermarket with four items on your list but end up buying eight?
What’s the difference between “healthy” and “natural?” Maybe you just read that
chocolate is back on the “good food” list — should you go buy some? What costs are
there — both monetary and costs of other sorts — to how we eat? How do we know what
to believe when it comes to food?
Through class readings, fieldwork, research, and writing, you will explore the complex
nature of the food issues facing us today. Course texts may include Michael Pollen’s
Omnivore’s Dilemma (selections); Marion Nestle’s What to Eat (selections); Dan
Jurafsky’s The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu, and Alan Levinovitz’s
The Gluten Lie and Other Myths About What You Eat. Writing texts may include They
Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing and the AU edition of Easy
Writer.
WRTG 101.004, MTH 8:10 a.m. – 9:25 a.m. Decoding Social Justice: Writing about Injustice and Social Reform
Professor Amanda Choutka
“Be the change you want to see in the world,” may be what Gandhi said, but he didn’t
live in modern day D.C. nor have a full class schedule. We will move beyond that easy
slogan to consider the implications, systems, and limitations to social reform and access
to basic human rights. We’ll read about movements and events that propelled service
work, such as Hurricane Katrina, the fall of Detroit, education inequality in America,
feminism, and Black Lives Matter. You’ll work on understanding what kind of reform
captures the hearts and hands of nonprofits, lawmakers, and citizens – and what doesn’t.
This course will examine the implications of inequality, injustice, and social mobility
through writing assignments and course readings. We will read and analyze the rhetoric
of social justice advocates, diverse communities, and service work. Major writing
assignments may include a scholarly essay on why individuals serve and a portfolio that
showcases your writing from the semester. (Former students have used these portfolios as
work samples to obtain internships and jobs). There will be short writing or group
assignments and readings due nearly every class. Students enrolled in this course may
add the optional Community Service Learning Project’s fourth credit, which enables
students to earn an additional academic credit through completing 40 hours of direct
service volunteer work in the D.C. community, fulfilling a service project for their
community service partner, and writing reflective essay (which is also the final essay for
our course).
Texts may include but are not limited to:
TED Talks from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dave Eggers, and Mellody Hobson
Chasing Chaos by Jessica Alexander
Various articles and essays from The Atlantic, Slate, The Washington Post, and The New
York Times
“I Will Forever Remain Faithful: How Lil Wayne Helped Me Survive My First Year
Teaching in New Orleans” by David Ramsey
Excerpts from Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Excerpts from Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts by Joseph Harris
“Starfish Hurling and Community Service” by Keith Morton
Articles from WritingSpaces.org
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
WRTG 101.005, MTH 8:10 a.m. – 9:25 a.m.
Mom Jeans and Dad-Bods: Examining and Questioning the Value and Values of
Popular Culture
Professor Alison Thomas
Magazines like Men’s Fitness promise that women of all ages love dad bod, offering “10
Keys to a Perfect Dad Bod.” But TIME Magazine calls “Dad Bod” a “sexist atrocity.” Is
there something wrong with this term? We have to wonder, what’s “dad bod” really all
about?
Kendall Jenner is splashed across the pages of gossip magazines wearing “mom jeans,”
the high waisted denim pants popular in the 80s, retailers like Urban Outfitters sells them,
and fashion magazines offer styling suggestions. But SNL spoofs “mom jeans,” showing
Tina Fey in a pair and noting they’re from JC Penney. Why are “mom jeans,” typically
seen as unflattering, so popular? We have to wonder, what are mom jeans really all
about?
We think of pop culture objects and trends as fleeting, low-brow and sometimes mindless
entertainment. In this class, we’ll think, read, research, and write about what the mostconsumed artifacts of our culture mean. We’ll not only examine mom jeans and dad bods,
but we’ll also look at topics ranging from Carpool Karaoke to Stranger Things, from The
Weeknd to Friday Night Lights. Then we’ll consider what analyzing these pop culture
artifacts can lend to academic conversations. Can such topics help scholars in particular
fields learn something about who we are as humans? About how we think of ourselves, or
interact with others?
This course invites students to examine the value and values of popular culture artifacts
as texts in order to master the skills and concepts of academic writing and research.
Ultimately, students will make meaningful, provocative arguments about popular culture
to both academic and popular audiences. This will require students to practice “reading”
texts and engaging with scholarly research. Students will build on research and writing
strategies from WRTG 100 - establishing existing conversations to join, and adding
something of their own.
Students will write a scholarly essay, and will then consider the deeper question of the
relationship between scholarship and popular texts. The capstone project for this course
will be to write an essay for a popular publication like Rolling Stone, The New Yorker,
Vulture, etc.
Texts may include:
Essays by Malcolm Gladwell, Chuck Klosterman, Roxanne Gay, Caitlin Moran and other
cultural critics
Multi-media texts including YouTube videos, films, podcasts, and music
Scholarly articles from The Journal of Popular Culture
WRTG 101.006, MTH 8:10 a.m. – 9:25 a.m.
On Campus: Writing About University Life
Professor Lacey Wootton
“College” is not only a place where one studies; it has become an object of study, too.
The popular press, pundits, government officials, scholars—they’re all talking and
writing about issues related to university life. How does college foster economic and
social mobility, and how might colleges inhibit mobility? What are the rewards and
advantages of a college education? Are there limits to academic freedom? How are
colleges addressing issues such as sexual assault and racism? In this class, we’ll join
some of those conversations to explore successes, problems, and trends on college
campuses. Colleges are complex systems, and we’ll deal with the particular challenges
involved in researching and writing about complexity with clarity but without
oversimplification. We’ll situate our work within historical contexts so that your
arguments reflect a fuller understanding of the issues. We’ll moreover talk about ways to
find something original to say about “good news” – not just “problems.” You’ll be able to
research and write about issues of importance to you, using the work of other scholars to
better understand the complexities and consequences of what’s going on around us on
campus.
Note: This class will deal with challenging and potentially disturbing material, including
sexual assault, racism, and classism.
Texts may include:
Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality by Armstrong, Elizabeth, and
Laura Hamilton
Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses by Arum, Richard, and
Josipa Roksa
Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts by Joseph Harris
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer
WRTG 101.008, MTH 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
On Campus: Writing About University Life
Professor Lacey Wootton
“College” is not only a place where one studies; it has become an object of study, too.
The popular press, pundits, government officials, scholars—they’re all talking and
writing about issues related to university life. How does college foster economic and
social mobility, and how might colleges inhibit mobility? What are the rewards and
advantages of a college education? Are there limits to academic freedom? How are
colleges addressing issues such as sexual assault and racism? In this class, we’ll join
some of those conversations to explore successes, problems, and trends on college
campuses. Colleges are complex systems, and we’ll deal with the particular challenges
involved in researching and writing about complexity with clarity but without
oversimplification. We’ll situate our work within historical contexts so that your
arguments reflect a fuller understanding of the issues. We’ll moreover talk about ways to
find something original to say about “good news” – not just “problems.” You’ll be able to
research and write about issues of importance to you, using the work of other scholars to
better understand the complexities and consequences of what’s going on around us on
campus.
Note: This class will deal with challenging and potentially disturbing material, including
sexual assault, racism, and classism.
Texts may include:
Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality by Armstrong, Elizabeth, and
Laura Hamilton
Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses by Arum, Richard, and
Josipa Roksa
Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts by Joseph Harris
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer
WRTG 101.009, MTH 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Intimacy in a Digital Age
Professor Arielle Bernstein
Our society is filled with contradictory messages about technology. On the one hand, new
technologies are presented as being exciting and, in some cases, revolutionary. On the
other, many people fear the ways that technology is driving us apart. This class will
investigate how technology shapes our relationship to one another, from the way that
social media facilitates communication with far-away-friends, to the way that technology
influences the way we think about love, sex, and romance, and how Twitter and
Instagram shape political and cultural discourse. In investigating films such as HER, Lo
and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World, we’ll think critically about what human
connection means and whether our relationships to one another are changing. By reading
a combination of popular and scholarly articles by authors like Alexandra Schwartz, Kurt
Anderson, and Mark Greif, we’ll go deeper in exploring how the hopes and fears people
have about modernity end up shaping the way we see progress and the way we see each
other. This class will emphasize critical thinking about popular subjects like selfies and
Netflix streaming, and you may be surprised to find that scholars, writers, and artists are
just as invested in exploring these ideas as you are with your friends.
WRTG 101.010, MTH 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
This Written Life
Professor Stina Oakes
“Each week on our program, of course, we choose a theme, and bring you different kinds
of stories on that theme.” – Ira Glass, This American Life
Following the structure of the popular podcast This American Life, you will choose your
own topic to examine through different genres and angles throughout the semester. Your
individual topic will be completely up to you, but it should be something you have
knowledge of, are passionate about, or are interested in exploring more fully. Past topics
have included: show choir, tiny houses, photography, fashion, boy bands, NASCAR, and
dictators. You will write three pieces on your theme – a personal introduction to the
theme, a researched feature, and a scholarly piece. Since this course is an academic
writing course, our primary focus will be to continue to practice and refine writing skills
through critical reading, research, writing, and discussion. As a class, our theme will
center on the craft and process of writing; we will examine the issues and rhetorical
strategies of academic writing. We will be building on the skills you learned in Writing
100 and They Say/I Say by using a variety of texts that focus on writing, reading, and
research, such as Joseph Harris’ Rewriting, Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools, and articles
from WritingSpaces.org.
WRTG 101.011, MTH 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Mom Jeans and Dad-Bods: Examining and Questioning the Value and Values of
Popular Culture
Professor Alison Thomas
Magazines like Men’s Fitness promise that women of all ages love dad bod, offering “10
Keys to a Perfect Dad Bod.” But TIME Magazine calls “Dad Bod” a “sexist atrocity.” Is
there something wrong with this term? We have to wonder, what’s “dad bod” really all
about?
Kendall Jenner is splashed across the pages of gossip magazines wearing “mom jeans,”
the high-waisted denim pants popular in the 80s, retailers like Urban Outfitters sells
them, and fashion magazines offer styling suggestions. But SNL spoofs “mom jeans,”
showing Tina Fey in a pair and noting they’re from JC Penney. Why are “mom jeans,”
typically seen as unflattering, so popular? We have to wonder, what are mom jeans really
all about?
We think of pop culture objects and trends as fleeting, low-brow and sometimes mindless
entertainment. In this class, we’ll think, read, research, and write about what the mostconsumed artifacts of our culture mean. We’ll not only examine mom jeans and dad bods,
but we’ll also look at topics ranging from Carpool Karaoke to Stranger Things, from The
Weeknd to Friday Night Lights. Then we’ll consider what analyzing these pop culture
artifacts can lend to academic conversations. Can such topics help scholars in particular
fields learn something about who we are as humans? About how we think of ourselves, or
interact with others?
This course invites students to examine the value and values of popular culture artifacts
as texts in order to master the skills and concepts of academic writing and research.
Ultimately, students will make meaningful, provocative arguments about popular culture
to both academic and popular audiences. This will require students to practice “reading”
texts and engaging with scholarly research. Students will build on research and writing
strategies from WRTG 100 – establishing existing conversations to join, and adding
something of their own.
Students will write a scholarly essay, and will then consider the deeper question of the
relationship between scholarship and popular texts. The capstone project for this course
will be to write an essay for a popular publication like Rolling Stone, The New Yorker,
Vulture, etc.
Texts may include:
Essays by Malcolm Gladwell, Chuck Klosterman, Roxanne Gay, Caitlin Moran and other
cultural critics
Multi-media texts including YouTube videos, films, podcasts, and music
Scholarly articles from The Journal of Popular Culture
WRTG 101.012, 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Mapping Complexity: Embodied Subjectivity, Multi-positionality, and the
Becoming of the Citizen-Rhetor
Professor Hunter Hoskins
This course seeks to develop technologically-savvy scholars who thrive within
complexity, rather than fear it. Some researchers, such as the scholar Cathy N. Davidson,
argue that today’s complex global economy favors those who can "make connections,
synthesize, collaborate, network, manage projects, solve problems, and respond to
constantly changing technologies.” For Davidson, then, rather than becoming an expert in
a single subject, which quickly becomes outmoded, we must think holistically to connect
our local, personal experience to an ever shifting complex global network. However,
where some, like Davidson, see opportunity in an increasingly globalized world, others
see a rootless, voiceless, and postmodern fragmentation, in which the individual is
reduced to “a disembodied rights-bearer, a roving cosmopolite, an itinerate consumer, a
migrant worker,” whose civic engagement is merely “spectatorial” (Fleming City of
Rhetoric).
This course investigates this tension. By tracing our positionality within this ecological
network, can we map the forces that shape us? Can we shape those forces in turn? Can
this tracing allow us to not only recognize and appreciate difference, but also harness it?
By seeing culture as a complex adaptive system, can we reconstitute the Athenian public
square, where our embodied, collective multi-positionality unifies us and empowers the
disenfranchised? Or have the forces of globalization rendered embodied, civic discourse
Utopian?
In a series of high-impact encounters in D.C., you will situate yourself within this
complex global network by tracing the rhetoric of space and place. You will begin by
collaboratively annotating a digital map of D.C., which will launch your individual
inquiry from which your multimodal projects will emerge. These projects will trace your
own positionality to the local environment with the goal of meaningfully entering the
local public discourse.
By course's end, you will not only have practiced the reading, writing, research, and
editing skills necessary for academic success, but you will also have worked extensively
in multimodal technologies to write yourself into a complex network as a citizen-rhetor.
You will also have a fancy Wordpress site to show off to potential employers.
WRTG 101.013, MTH 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Hip Hop Scholarship
Professor Sarah Trembath
Few people think of academic scholarship when they think of Hip Hop, yet the two have
always interfaced in significant ways. Def Jam Records began in a dorm room at one
university; The Source magazine started as a handout pamphlet at another; and Hip Hop
archives, studies programs, scholarly journals, and even minors are popping up
everywhere. Many academics, then, have always seen Hip Hop for what it is: a
subculture that gives a broad platform for marginalized people of color and a
contemporary art form that brings forward and preserves older forms from the past.
Students taking this class will study secondary-source, academic scholarship on Hip Hop
(specifically culture, history, and poetics) and will analyze primary material (like songs,
videos, and films) through an analytic lens of their own creation. Students will write
serious analysis, first on Hip Hop and then on some aspect of pop culture or counterculture that interests them.
Texts:
Black Noise by Tricia Rose
Prophets of the Hood by Imani Perry
The Hip Hop Generation by Bakari Kitwana
Hip Hop America by Nelson George
Book of Rhymes by Adam Bradley
WRTG 101.014, MTH 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Stranger (Academic) Things
Professor Derek Tokaz
If there were a supernatural realm such as the “upside down” in Stranger Things, what
are the odds a school teacher’s explanation of it would be accurate?
While this question may seem better suited for the dimension of Facebook rather than
academia, the method of answering it mirrors the methods used in a wide variety of more
serious, practical inquiries. For instance, the way we decide if Scott Clark is at all
credible with his explanation of the upside down dimension is very similar to how we
might go about analyzing Blaise Pascal’s famous argument about belief in the existence
of God (known as Pascal’s Wager).
This course will focus on the more exotic elements of academic writing as they pertain to
both the fantastical and the practical. We will begin by looking at what happens when
traditional research methods fail to provide satisfactory information (what is the
economic impact of a fender bender on the Beltway at 4pm? who would take out the
garbage if we suddenly provided everyone with a guaranteed minimum income?). Our
approaches will require blending traditional scholarly research with some first-hand
observations and a healthy dose of inductive reasoning.
After tackling how to find the answers to challenging questions, we will turn our
attention on how to explain things that don’t fit neatly into paragraphs. Writing
assignments will require you to incorporate graphs, illustrations, or other less-common
media. The bulk of your essays will still be traditional academic writing, but we will pay
special attention to how to join that writing with other methods of communication, and
how to decide what exactly is called for in different situations.
Texts will include What If? by Randall Munroe.
WRTG 101.015, MTH 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
The Language of Food
Professor Kate Wilson
Ever wondered why you are (or aren’t) willing to wait in a long line at Starbucks? Or
why it is you enter the supermarket with four items on your list but end up buying eight?
What’s the difference between “healthy” and “natural?” Maybe you just read that
chocolate is back on the “good food” list — should you go buy some? What costs are
there — both monetary and costs of other sorts — to how we eat? How do we know what
to believe when it comes to food?
Through class readings, fieldwork, research, and writing, you will explore the complex
nature of the food issues facing us today. Course texts may include Michael Pollen’s
Omnivore’s Dilemma (selections); Marion Nestle’s What to Eat (selections); Dan
Jurafsky’s The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu, and Alan Levinovitz’s
The Gluten Lie and Other Myths About What You Eat. Writing texts may include They
Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing and the AU edition of Easy
Writer.
WRTG 101.016, TF 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
“Infection in the sentence:” Plagues, People, and Prose
Professor Sarah Marsh
From the old Kiowa legend of a stranger named Smallpox and Daniel Defoe’s A Journal
of the Plague Year to contemporary accounts of Ebola and Zika virus, people seek to
understand epidemics by describing them with words. In doing so, these writers grapple
inevitably with vital questions about contagious disease: Does illness create immunity or
result from lack of it? Do race, class, sexual orientation, gender, or national affiliation
protect against disease? Does sickness create or merely mark social boundaries? What is
the relationship between imperialism and illness? How do the life cycles of
microorganisms inflect the stories we tell of sickness in a global culture? How do
scientific narratives of epidemics inflect our cultural practices, our economic models, and
our social behavior?
In this class we will use writing to explore these questions, taking seriously that words
and ideas—like diseases—are by their nature communicable; as the poet Emily
Dickinson’s famously observed: “Infection in the sentence breeds.” If scheduling permits,
students will do part of their research for this course at the National Library of Medicine.
WRTG 101.017 TF 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Food (and) Writing
Professor Heather McDonald
Did you know a cookbook can be a declaration of revolution? That a recipe can be the
story of a family? That cup of coffee in your hand can symbolize a country’s economy?
You might think food is just fuel; after this class, you’ll see much more than what’s on
your plate. Food writing is both personal and political; it explores individual and
collective memories, policy and politics, socio-economic classes, race, gender, and more.
From restaurant reviewers to memoirists, from journalists to foodways researchers, food
writers and scholars explore how their subject is both literal and metaphorical fuel for
individuals and communities. This course goes well beyond the idea that “food tastes
good.” We will examine the genre and fields as writers, by sharpening critical thinking
skills, practicing writing techniques, and honing research skills. Texts may include
essays, articles, podcasts, and films, by notable food writers and scholars like Ruth
Reichl, MFK Fisher, Pete Wells, Dan Barber, John T. Edge, Jessamyn Neuhaus, and
Psyche Williams-Forson. Writing texts may include Rewriting: How to Do Things With
Texts, by Joseph Harris, How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One, by Stanley
Fish, and EasyWriter, by Andrea Lunsford.
WRTG 101.018 TF 9:45 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
The Earth Untrammeled: Rhetoric of the American Wilderness
Professor Mary Switalski
“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the
landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are
untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” – Section 2c,
Wilderness Act, 1964
In September of 1964, the 88th Congress signed into law the Wilderness Act, considered
one of America’s greatest achievements in conservation and preservation. In the fifty
years since its adoption, nearly 110 million acres of our nation’s natural treasures have
been protected as wilderness for posterity, and new proposals reach Congress each year.
What is it that we value so deeply about the wild? We go into the wild as a visitor, to
marvel at it, or to test our mettle. We go to it for recreation; in it, we are re-created. In
this course, we’ll explore meanings of wilderness in the American imagination, from
Puritans and pioneers through contemporary nature writers. You’ll write a thesis-driven
profile essay about an individual whose rhetoric and actions contributed significantly to
our perception of wilderness and its value. We’ll also research and analyze modern
environmental theory and policy, and in a formal academic essay, you’ll explore a topic
of your choice related to wilderness law and/or environmental ethics.
Texts may include excerpts from the journals of The Corps of Discovery, Thoreau’s
Walden, Gary Snyder’s The Practice of the Wild, Annie Dillard’s Teaching a Stone to
Talk, Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Cheryl Strayed’s Wild,
and lots of scholarly articles in support of your own projects.
WRTG 101.019, TF 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 p.m.
Ringers and Red Sox Nation, Bronies and the Beyhive: The Writing Ecology of
Fandom
Professor Chuck Cox
Whether devoted to a celebrity or a fictional character, a sports team or a TV show, a
musical group or a writer, members of a fandom are all-too easily mocked for the
intensity of their fervor. But what happens when we look past the silly names and the
extreme examples? Fandoms are communities. Like many communities, they produce
texts: Fans write and read reviews, appreciation websites, discussion forms, wikis and
blogs, feature articles, fanfiction, and more, all in a recursive system that creates a place
for the fans to interact. Composition scholars call this a writing ecology: a complex,
socially determined network of texts that constructs intellectual and cultural spaces. This
seminar will explore writing ecologies by researching and writing about fandoms,
looking at both the fandoms themselves and the scholarship about them. We will pose
such questions as: How do fans communicate differently with each other than with
people outside the group? In what ways do fandoms create their own internal styles and
forms of authority? How do fandoms generate new knowledge and add to larger cultural
conversations? How do non-verbal texts, such as images, objects, and costumes
complicate the notion of “writing ecology”? In short, we will use fandoms as a way to
understand writing and rhetoric. Assigned texts for this course will include Harris’s
Rewriting, as well as a range of scholarly and popular works, including primary texts.
WRTG 101.020, TF 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Pickling the Linguistic Turnip: Writing about Words and Discourse
Professor Kelly Joyner
“What [man] cannot express, he cannot conceive; what he cannot conceive is chaos, and
fills him with terror.” – Susanne K. Langer
“Believe me.” – Donald Trump
“Don’t ask, don’t tell.” – Bill Clinton
“It’s dangerous using words.” – Bob Garfield
We are surrounded by unexamined language. Face-to-face and online conversation . . .
written texts . . . live and recorded public speech . . . signs, posters, and advertisement . . .
song lyrics and shouts in the night. In this class, we’ll try to step back from ourselves and
the many texts around us and figure out what all this language is saying about who we
really are, what we believe and assume, what we tout, and what we hide. We’ll establish
an academic foundation with the help of the writers listed below, and we’ll create our
own scholarship by analyzing, close-reading, arguing, and speculating about words.
Writers we may read:
Malcolm Gladwell, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Susanne K. Langer, Michael
Lewis, John McWhorter, Geoffrey Nunberg, George Orwell, David Skinner, Deborah
Tannen, and D.F. Wallace.
WRTG 101.021, TF 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
The Power of Narrative
Professor Jocelyn McCarthy
In After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argues that
“man is in his actions and practice, as well as in his fictions, essentially a story-telling
animal.” Many of us would agree. Human beings tell stories about virtually everything
and for virtually every purpose: to strengthen emotional bonds, to transmit values to the
next generation, and to unite people for a cause, among other things. As listeners and
readers, we itch for a good story – to know “how it ends.” As writers, we understand that
we’re tapping into a powerful force when we tell a story.
In fact, in the writing world, narrative is frequently acknowledged as one of the best ways
to get and keep a reader’s interest. Though we don’t often think of stories when we think
of persuasive, argument-driven writing, many effective nonfiction writers find ways to
blend the two. Even in the world of densely researched scholarly writing – a world we’ll
explore in our reading and writing – touches of narrative are increasingly used to make
argument and research more inviting.
We’ll explore what scholars have written about the power of narrative, particularly in the
fields of communications and rhetoric. Central to our examination will be Walter
Fisher’s narrative paradigm theory – which posited that narrative is the basis of human
communication – and the reaction to it.
In this course, we’ll strengthen our research and argument skills, explore scholarly
discourse, and examine strategies for harnessing the power of narrative to create more
powerful and persuasive academic writing.
WRTG 101.023, TF 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Feminism & Gender
Professor Maya Brown
What does it mean to be female in our society? Male? Is it our genes? Our anatomy? Our
behavior? How do we define what it means to be a man or a woman? If gender is, as
feminist critic Judith Butler says, “a way of making the world secure,” what do we do
when this dichotomy breaks down? In this class we will be looking at the social
construction of gender and especially what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal
society. We will look at essays, novels, news articles, television, and film to attempt to
understand what gender means in our society and how feminists have navigated these
thorny waters. Through our readings and research, we will explore definitions of gender
and their impact on the individual and society. The major course requirements may
include a personal essay, a researched article, and a final presentation based on your
research.
Texts may include:
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Films and TV shows including Boys Don’t Cry
Additional essays and articles
WRTG 101.024, TF 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
On Campus: Writing About University Life
Professor Lacey Wootton
“College” is not only a place where one studies; it has become an object of study, too.
The popular press, pundits, government officials, scholars—they’re all talking and
writing about issues related to university life. How does college foster economic and
social mobility, and how might colleges inhibit mobility? What are the rewards and
advantages of a college education? Are there limits to academic freedom? How are
colleges addressing issues such as sexual assault and racism? In this class, we’ll join
some of those conversations to explore successes, problems, and trends on college
campuses. Colleges are complex systems, and we’ll deal with the particular challenges
involved in researching and writing about complexity with clarity but without
oversimplification. We’ll situate our work within historical contexts so that your
arguments reflect a fuller understanding of the issues. We’ll moreover talk about ways to
find something original to say about “good news” – not just “problems.” You’ll be able to
research and write about issues of importance to you, using the work of other scholars to
better understand the complexities and consequences of what’s going on around us on
campus.
Note: This class will deal with challenging and potentially disturbing material, including
sexual assault, racism, and classism.
Texts may include:
Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality by Armstrong, Elizabeth, and
Laura Hamilton
Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses by Arum, Richard, and
Josipa Roksa
Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts by Joseph Harris
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer
WRTG 101.025 MTH 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
Intimacy in a Digital Age
Professor Arielle Bernstein
Our society is filled with contradictory messages about technology. On the one hand, new
technologies are presented as being exciting and, in some cases, revolutionary. On the
other, many people fear the ways that technology is driving us apart. This class will
investigate how technology shapes our relationship to one another, from the way that
social media facilitates communication with far-away-friends, to the way that technology
influences the way we think about love, sex, and romance, and how Twitter and
Instagram shape political and cultural discourse. In investigating films such as HER, Lo
and Behold Reveries of the Connected World, we’ll think critically about what human
connection means and whether our relationships to one another are changing. By reading
a combination of popular and scholarly articles by authors like Alexandra Schwartz, Kurt
Anderson, and Mark Greif, we’ll go deeper in exploring how the hopes and fears people
have about modernity end up shaping the way we see progress and the way we see each
other. This class will emphasize critical thinking about popular subjects like selfies and
Netflix streaming, and you may be surprised to find that scholars, writers, and artists are
just as invested in exploring these ideas as you are with your friends.
WRTG 101.026, MTH 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
Art of Activism: Reading and Writing Protest
Professor Melissa Scholes Young
Is protest effective in constructing social change? How has activism shaped the
world? Through scholarly research and writing, we’ll explore the strength of an
individual voice and the consequences of community radicalism. Students will read
and write about protest leaders, such as Mother Jones, Martin Luther King, Jr., Audre
Lorde, and Gandhi, and learn to express themselves and persuade others using the art of
argument. We’ll also evaluate modern protest movements, such as Black Lives Matter,
Greenpeace, and Arab Spring, to critically examine how social media is utilized to
organize protest. Through responses to activist essays, music, and film, we’ll master
writing and research strategies that get your voice heard in a noisy world.
Texts may include:
Protest Nation: Words That Inspired a Century of American Radicalism edited by
Timothy Patrick McCarthy and John McMillan
The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of
Seattle by T.V. Reed
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
WRTG 101.027, MTH 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
Mapping Complexity: Embodied Subjectivity, Multi-positionality, and the
Becoming of the Citizen-Rhetor
Professor Hunter Hoskins
This course seeks to develop technologically-savvy scholars who thrive within
complexity, rather than fear it. Some researchers, such as the scholar Cathy N. Davidson,
argue that today’s complex global economy favors those who can "make connections,
synthesize, collaborate, network, manage projects, solve problems, and respond to
constantly changing technologies.” For Davidson, then, rather than becoming an expert in
a single subject, which quickly becomes outmoded, we must think holistically to connect
our local, personal experience to an ever shifting complex global network. However,
where some, like Davidson, see opportunity in an increasingly globalized world, others
see a rootless, voiceless, and postmodern fragmentation, in which the individual is
reduced to “a disembodied rights-bearer, a roving cosmopolite, an itinerate consumer, a
migrant worker,” whose civic engagement is merely “spectatorial” (Fleming City of
Rhetoric).
This course investigates this tension. By tracing our positionality within this ecological
network, can we map the forces that shape us? Can we shape those forces in turn? Can
this tracing allow us to not only recognize and appreciate difference, but also harness it?
By seeing culture as a complex adaptive system, can we reconstitute the Athenian public
square, where our embodied, collective multi-positionality unifies us and empowers the
disenfranchised? Or have the forces of globalization rendered embodied, civic discourse
Utopian?
In a series of high-impact encounters in D.C., you will situate yourself within this
complex global network by tracing the rhetoric of space and place. You will begin by
collaboratively annotating a digital map of D.C., which will launch your individual
inquiry from which your multimodal projects will emerge. These projects will trace your
own positionality to the local environment with the goal of meaningfully entering the
local public discourse.
By course's end, you will not only have practiced the reading, writing, research, and
editing skills necessary for academic success, but you will also have worked extensively
in multimodal technologies to write yourself into a complex network as a citizen-rhetor.
You will also have a fancy Wordpress site to show off to potential employers.
WRTG 101.028, MTH 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
Hip Hop Scholarship
Professor Sarah Trembath
Few people think of academic scholarship when they think of Hip Hop, yet the two have
always interfaced in significant ways. Def Jam Records began in a dorm room at one
university; The Source magazine started as a handout pamphlet at another; and Hip Hop
archives, studies programs, scholarly journals, and even minors are popping up
everywhere. Many academics, then, have always seen Hip Hop for what it is: a
subculture that gives a broad platform for marginalized people of color and a
contemporary art form that brings forward and preserves older forms from the past.
Students taking this class will study secondary-source, academic scholarship on Hip Hop
(specifically culture, history, and poetics) and will analyze primary material (like songs,
videos, and films) through an analytic lens of their own creation. Students will write
serious analysis, first on Hip Hop and then on some aspect of pop culture or counterculture that interests them.
Texts:
Black Noise by Tricia Rose
Prophets of the Hood by Imani Perry
The Hip Hop Generation by Bakari Kitwana
Hip Hop America by Nelson George
Book of Rhymes by Adam Bradley
WRTG 101.029, MTH 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
Rewriting the Starfish Story: Writing for Community Engagement
Professor Amanda Choutka
Do you want to “change the world,” but worry about the implications of serving in a new
community? Is volunteering one’s energy to a non-profit organization a religious, moral,
or civic duty? Does volunteering address the institutions and systems that create and
foster inequality? What are the ethical and political implications at stake when choosing a
community to volunteer in? What factors will influence the relationship between the
volunteer and the members of the community served? After service, does the volunteer
change? And can a volunteer substantively contribute to a local community through a
semester of service? This course will examine the implications of service through writing
assignments, course readings, and a required fieldwork experience. (The fieldwork
experience is required of all students enrolled in the course and includes 15 hours of
volunteer work in one of three Washington, D.C. community-based organizations or
areas of service, which may include Horton’s Kids, D.C. Reads, or Kid Power; THRIVE
DC, DC Central Kitchen, or Foods and Friends; and another organization to be
determined by student interest.) We will read texts on the rhetoric of social justice,
historical and cultural contexts, community-based learning, and service experiences.
Major writing assignments may include a scholarly essay on why individuals serve and a
writing portfolio that showcases your academic and community-based writing from the
semester. (Former students have used these portfolios as work samples to obtain
internships and jobs). There will be short writing or group assignments and readings due
nearly every class. This is a Community-Based Learning (CB or CBL) course; CBL
courses emphasize social responsibility and engagement in D.C. while practicing
reciprocity. Students will research, write, and practice reciprocity by participating in a
recursive writing process and reciprocal relationship with their community partner.
Students enrolled in this course may add the optional Community Service Learning
Project’s fourth credit, which enables student to earn an additional academic credit
through completing an additional 40 hours of direct service volunteer work, completing a
service project for their community service partner, and a reflective essay (which is part
of the portfolio for the course).
Texts may include:
TED Talks from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dave Eggers, and Mellody Hobson
Chasing Chaos by Jessica Alexander
Various articles and essays from The Atlantic, Slate, The Washington Post, and The New
York Times
“I Will Forever Remain Faithful: How Lil Wayne Helped Me Survive My First Year
Teaching in New Orleans” by David Ramsey
Excerpts from Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Excerpts from Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts by Joseph Harris
“Starfish Hurling and Community Service” by Keith Morton
Articles from WritingSpaces.org
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
WRTG 101.030 MTH 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
What Do You Have To Say?
Professor Susan Mockler
You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have
something to say. —F. Scott Fitzgerald
This section will focus on students’ discovery that they have something to say and can
express it through writing. We will do this by first reading various genres, including
creative non-fiction, short fiction, poetry and writing for the public (such as op-ed
pieces). Writing assignments will focus on these genres and will be a mix of creative
writing and workshopping, as well as literary analysis and scholarly research.
Possible texts include:
Creative non-fiction: Mother of Sorrows by Richard McCann
Select poems of poets of witness (e.g., Split This Rock poets)
Short fiction by Toni Cade Bambera
Public opinion articles in the Washington Post and New York Times
WRTG 101.032, TF 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
Our Friends, Our Foes, Our Food: The Bizarre Relationship Between Humans
and Other Animals
Professor Lydia Fettig
Our relationship with animals is far more complex and pervasive than most of us realize.
For example, consider that neighbor, friend, or relative we all have — the one who
obsessively collects pig figurines. Or think about the many animals that serve as school
mascots, or the animals served as school lunch, or the animals dissected in school
classrooms. Too upsetting? Then shift your attention to the plethora of cat videos
on YouTube or focus instead on the simple existence of doggles (eyewear for dogs?!).
And, if you’re still not convinced that our relationship with animals is both multifaceted
and omnipresent, reflect upon the relentless anthropomorphism that Disney movies
provide; or those elderly women who care for more than fifty cats in their homes; or the
man from Ohio who, before shooting himself, released his extensive collection of exotic
wild animals on an unsuspecting public.
While some of our inquiries will lead us to a study of animal rights and what appears to
be a human need to dominate animals, we will also enter critical conversations about our
inherent affection for and attraction to animals. For this reason, we will thoroughly
examine the human-pet bond. By the end of the term, our inquiries will have led us
through explorations and writings rooted in the natural and social sciences, economics,
environmental issues, race, culture, gender, and concepts of selfhood. Major course
assignments will include two research-based projects. Students will also prepare and
participate in a series of multimedia presentations.
Course materials might include:
Animals Make Us Human (Temple Grandin)
Eating Animals (Jonathan Safran Foer)
Mine: The Pets that Hurricane Katrina Left Behind (documentary film)
Pets In America: The History (Katherine C. Grier)
Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants
(Robert Sullivan)
Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts (Joseph Harris)
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About
Animals (Hal Herog)
Why We Love Cats and Dogs (documentary film)
Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume I and Volume II
Excerpts and/or short works by Aristotle, Arnold Arluke, Jeremy Bentham, Matt
Cartmill, Rene Decartes, Malcolm Gladwell, Leslie Irvine, Tom Regan, Clinton Sanders,
Peter Singer, and others
WRTG 101.033, TF 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
Ringers and Red Sox Nation, Bronies and the Beyhive: The Writing Ecology of
Fandom
Professor Chuck Cox
Whether devoted to a celebrity or a fictional character, a sports team or a TV show, a
musical group or a writer, members of a fandom are all-too easily mocked for the
intensity of their fervor. But what happens when we look past the silly names and the
extreme examples? Fandoms are communities. Like many communities, they produce
texts: Fans write and read reviews, appreciation websites, discussion forms, wikis and
blogs, feature articles, fanfiction, and more – all in a recursive system that creates a place
for the fans to interact. Composition scholars call this community a writing ecology: a
complex, socially determined network of texts that constructs intellectual and cultural
spaces. This seminar will explore writing ecologies by researching and writing about
fandoms, looking at both the fandoms themselves and the scholarship about them. We
will pose such questions as: How do fans communicate differently with each other than
with people outside the group? In what ways do fandoms create their own internal styles
and forms of authority? How do fandoms generate new knowledge and add to larger
cultural conversations? How do non-verbal texts, such as images, objects, and costumes
complicate the notion of “writing ecology”? In short, we will use fandoms as a way to
understand writing and rhetoric. Assigned texts for this course will include Harris’s
Rewriting, as well as a range of scholarly and popular works, including primary texts.
WRTG 101.034, TF 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
“Touched with Fire:” Creativity & Madness
Professor Leah Johnson
Why have so many great artists—Vincent Van Gogh, Robert Schumann, Lord Byron,
Virginia Woolf—struggled with insanity? Is there a link between madness and creativity?
Is it necessary to be “a little mad” to create works of art? Or does the artist create in spite
of his/her madness? Is one’s creativity enhanced or hampered by extremes of
temperament? What price must the artist pay for his/her sensitivity? Where do we fall on
the spectrum of madness and sanity? How do we even begin to define these terms? We’ll
address these questions and others as we read memoirs of madness, theories about
madness, and creative transformations, deepening our understanding of the artistic
temperament and of the role madness may or may not play in the creative life of the
artist.
Texts:
Darkness Visible by William Styron (book)
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen (book)
An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison (book)
“A Melancholy of Mine Own” by Joshua Wolf Shenk (personal essay)
“Ghost in the House” by Donald Hall (personal essay)
“Having It Out with Melancholy” by Jane Kenyon (poem)
Pollock (film)
WRTG 101.035, TF 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
The Earth Untrammeled: Rhetoric of the American Wilderness
Professor Mary Switalski
“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the
landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are
untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” – Section 2c,
Wilderness Act, 1964
In September of 1964, the 88th Congress signed into law the Wilderness Act, considered
one of America’s greatest achievements in conservation and preservation. In the fifty
years since its adoption, nearly 110 million acres of our nation’s natural treasures have
been protected as wilderness for posterity, and new proposals reach Congress each year.
What is it that we value so deeply about the wild? We go into the wild as a visitor, to
marvel at it, or to test our mettle. We go to it for recreation; in it, we are re-created.
In this course, we’ll explore meanings of wilderness in the American imagination, from
Puritans and pioneers through contemporary nature writers. You’ll write a thesis-driven
profile essay about an individual whose rhetoric and actions contributed significantly to
our perception of wilderness and its value. We’ll also research and analyze modern
environmental theory and policy, and in a formal academic essay, you’ll explore a topic
of your choice related to wilderness law and/or environmental ethics.
Texts may include excerpts from the journals of The Corps of Discovery, Thoreau’s
Walden, Gary Snyder’s The Practice of the Wild, Annie Dillard’s Teaching a Stone to
Talk, Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Cheryl Strayed’s Wild,
and lots of scholarly articles in support of your own projects.
WRTG 101.036, TF 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
Religion, Politics, and the Great Pumpkin
Professor Adam Tamashasky
Linus (of Peanuts fame) tells us these are the three things never to discuss with anyone.
Part of the reason for this advice might be that so many people haven’t read some of the
texts that have begun or altered conversations we have about the controversial issues of
our day (notably, abortion, religion, evolution, political and economic systems, and race
in the U.S.). This course aims to use a handful of these argument-driven texts to deepen
the lessons learned in WRTG 100; by studying these arguments to see how the theories
learned in 100 come to practical fruition (or die on the vine), you’ll continue honing your
college writing skills. We’ll read and study major Supreme Court decisions (like Roe v.
Wade, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, and Dred Scott v. Sandford),
influential books (like Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Freud’s Civilization and Its
Discontents, and excerpts of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations), and compact but
powerful tracts (like Marx’s & Engel’s Communist Manifesto, Thomas Paine’s Common
Sense, and Machiavelli’s The Prince). Expect daily reading, writing, and thinking (and,
spoilers, no Great Pumpkin).
WRTG 101.038, TF 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
The Culture of Nature: Mystery, Myth, and Truth
Professor Edward Comstock
We all know that scientists have made major strides in understanding the human brain,
cracking the genetic code, and forming a knowledge of human nature. Riding this wave
of scientific advance, popular magazines, newspapers, and television news outlets
trumpet the latest developments in medicine and biology—finally, we’re told, the secret
recesses of our humanity are revealing themselves to us. And we’re buying in. Feeling
unproductive? There’s a pill for that. Voting Republican? That’s just your genes. Don’t
fancy modern art? Well, the structure of your brain repels you from it. Thanks to science,
we’re told, we now have control over this crazy thing we call humanity. But is it all too
good to be true?
In this course we will explore why it is that—despite having come so far—we still
sometimes seem to know so little. Specifically, by examining the uses and limits of
knowledge and science, we will consider the long history of racist, sexist, and
homophobic ideas as they well up through dubious thinking and into the popular
imagination. In this process, you’ll discover that the scientific method usually prevails
over error and bias. Ultimately, you will become empowered to critique ideas and
problematic claims made under the banner truth, and you’ll study what science says about
how you can become a better, more persuasive writer. But above all, the goal of this
course will be to cultivate the research and writing skills that will enable you to debunk
myths and falsehoods and to make a significant contribution in the name of truth through
research and writing.
Possible texts include:
Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st
Century
Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man
Scott O. Lilienfeld et al.’s 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering
Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior
Joseph Harris’ Rewriting
Stanley Fish’s How to Write a Sentence
WRTG 101.039, TF 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
The Power of Narrative
Professor Jocelyn McCarthy
In After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argues that
“man is in his actions and practice, as well as in his fictions, essentially a story-telling
animal.” Many of us would agree. Human beings tell stories about virtually everything
and for virtually every purpose: to strengthen emotional bonds, to transmit values to the
next generation, and to unite people for a cause, among other things. As listeners and
readers, we itch for a good story – to know “how it ends.” As writers, we understand that
we’re tapping into a powerful force when we tell a story.
In fact, in the writing world, narrative is frequently acknowledged as one of the best ways
to get and keep a reader’s interest. Though we don’t often think of stories when we think
of persuasive, argument-driven writing, many effective nonfiction writers find ways to
blend the two. Even in the world of densely researched scholarly writing – a world we’ll
explore in our reading and writing – touches of narrative are increasingly used to make
argument and research more inviting.
We’ll explore what scholars have written about the power of narrative, particularly in the
fields of communications and rhetoric. Central to our examination will be Walter
Fisher’s narrative paradigm theory – which posited that narrative is the basis of human
communication – and the reaction to it.
In this course, we’ll strengthen our research and argument skills, explore scholarly
discourse, and examine strategies for harnessing the power of narrative to create more
powerful and persuasive academic writing.
WRTG 101.040, TF 11:20 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
Monster Culture
Professor Jona Colson
Enter freely and of your own will! As critic Jeffrey Jerome Cohen states, “We live in a
time of monsters.” Whether the monsters take the form of werewolves, witches,
vampires, dragons, beasts, or the forces of illness, monsters do a great deal of cultural
work. This course will examine the ways in which monsters challenge and question
contemporary culture and shape societies. Students will interrogate historical and recent
incarnations of monstrosity and how they reveal what we desire and fear. This course is
not for the faint of heart.
Texts may include:
American Gothic Tales, edited by Joyce Carol Oates (Plume)
Monsters edited by Brandy Ball Blake and L. Andrew Cooper (Fountainhead Press V
Series)
WRTG 101.041, MTH 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
This Written Life
Professor Stina Oakes
“Each week on our program, of course, we choose a theme, and bring you different kinds
of stories on that theme.” – Ira Glass, This American Life
Following the structure of the popular podcast This American Life, you will choose your
own topic to examine through different genres and angles throughout the semester. Your
individual topic will be completely up to you, but it should be something you have
knowledge of, are passionate about, or are interested in exploring more fully. Past topics
have included: show choir, tiny houses, photography, fashion, boy bands, NASCAR, and
dictators. You will write three pieces on your theme – a personal introduction to the
theme, a researched feature, and a scholarly piece. Since this course is an academic
writing course, our primary focus will be to continue to practice and refine writing skills
through critical reading, research, writing, and discussion. As a class, our theme will
center on the craft and process of writing; we will examine the issues and rhetorical
strategies of academic writing. We will be building on the skills you learned in Writing
100 and They Say/I Say by using a variety of texts that focus on writing, reading, and
research, such as Joseph Harris’ Rewriting, Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools, and articles
from WritingSpaces.org.
WRTG 101.042, MTH 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Decoding Social Justice: Writing about Injustice and Social Reform
Professor Amanda Choutka
“Be the change you want to see in the world,” may be what Gandhi said, but he didn’t
live in modern day D.C. nor have a full class schedule. We will move beyond that easy
slogan to consider the implications, systems, and limitations to social reform and access
to basic human rights. We’ll read about movements and events that propelled service
work, such as Hurricane Katrina, the fall of Detroit, education inequality in America,
feminism, and Black Lives Matter. You’ll work on understanding what kind of reform
captures the hearts and hands of nonprofits, lawmakers, and citizens – and what doesn’t.
This course will examine the implications of inequality, injustice, and social mobility
through writing assignments and course readings. We will read and analyze the rhetoric
of social justice advocates, diverse communities, and service work. Major writing
assignments may include a scholarly essay on why individuals serve and a portfolio that
showcases your writing from the semester. (Former students have used these portfolios as
work samples to obtain internships and jobs). There will be short writing or group
assignments and readings due nearly every class. Students enrolled in this course may
add the optional Community Service Learning Project’s fourth credit, which enables
students to earn an additional academic credit through completing 40 hours of direct
service volunteer work in the D.C. community, fulfilling a service project for their
community service partner, and writing reflective essay (which is also the final essay for
our course).
Texts may include but are not limited to:
TED Talks from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dave Eggers, and Mellody Hobson
Chasing Chaos by Jessica Alexander
Various articles and essays from The Atlantic, Slate, The Washington Post, and The New
York Times
“I Will Forever Remain Faithful: How Lil Wayne Helped Me Survive My First Year
Teaching in New Orleans” by David Ramsey
Excerpts from Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Excerpts from Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts by Joseph Harris
“Starfish Hurling and Community Service” by Keith Morton
Articles from WritingSpaces.org
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
WRTG 101.044, MTH 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Mapping Complexity: Embodied Subjectivity, Multi-positionality, and the
Becoming of the Citizen-Rhetor
Professor Hunter Hoskins
This course seeks to develop technologically-savvy scholars who thrive within
complexity, rather than fear it. Some researchers, such as the scholar Cathy N. Davidson,
argue that today’s complex global economy favors those who can "make connections,
synthesize, collaborate, network, manage projects, solve problems, and respond to
constantly changing technologies.” For Davidson, then, rather than becoming an expert in
a single subject, which quickly becomes outmoded, we must think holistically to connect
our local, personal experience to an ever shifting complex global network. However,
where some, like Davidson, see opportunity in an increasingly globalized world, others
see a rootless, voiceless, and postmodern fragmentation, in which the individual is
reduced to “a disembodied rights-bearer, a roving cosmopolite, an itinerate consumer, a
migrant worker,” whose civic engagement is merely “spectatorial” (Fleming City of
Rhetoric).
This course investigates this tension. By tracing our positionality within this ecological
network, can we map the forces that shape us? Can we shape those forces in turn? Can
this tracing allow us to not only recognize and appreciate difference, but also harness it?
By seeing culture as a complex adaptive system, can we reconstitute the Athenian public
square, where our embodied, collective multi-positionality unifies us and empowers the
disenfranchised? Or have the forces of globalization rendered embodied, civic discourse
Utopian?
In a series of high-impact encounters in D.C., you will situate yourself within this
complex global network by tracing the rhetoric of space and place. You will begin by
collaboratively annotating a digital map of D.C., which will launch your individual
inquiry from which your multimodal projects will emerge. These projects will trace your
own positionality to the local environment with the goal of meaningfully entering the
local public discourse.
By course's end, you will not only have practiced the reading, writing, research, and
editing skills necessary for academic success, but you will also have worked extensively
in multimodal technologies to write yourself into a complex network as a citizen-rhetor.
You will also have a fancy Wordpress site to show off to potential employers.
WRTG 101.045, MTH 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
On Expression and Deception: The Truth Behind Lies
Professor Chelsea Horne
Can you spot a liar? Have you ever wondered why some people are great at “reading” the
emotions and expressions of others? Is there a secret code? This course will dive into
current research to investigate the hard science behind emotions and expression. We will
work together to decode and demystify the “language” of facial expressions so that in
turn, we can better understand the modes of human communication. And further, we will
delve into the complexities of the human brain, setting out to explore the act of deception,
and its ramifications.
This class emphasizes researched writing and will provide you with core abilities such as
concepts of writing, writing process skills, reading/thinking skills, and research skills. To
do this, we will work with essays, novels, news articles, television and film clips, and
other popular and scholarly sources in order to develop in-depth understanding of how
and why humans express emotions the way way they do.
Possible Texts Include:
· Emotions Revealed by Paul Ekman
· Telling Lies by Paul Ekman
· The Archaeology of Mind by Jaak Panksepp
· Lie to Me (Fox TV Show)
· Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
· Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
WRTG 101.046, MTH 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
What Do You have to Say?
Professor Susan Mockler
You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have
something to say. —F. Scott Fitzgerald
This section will focus on students’ discovery that they have something to say and can
express it through writing. We will do this by first reading various genres, including
creative non-fiction, short fiction, poetry and writing for the public (such as op-ed
pieces). Writing assignments will focus on these genres and will be a mix of creative
writing and workshopping, as well as literary analysis and scholarly research.
Possible texts include:
Creative non-fiction: Mother of Sorrows by Richard McCann
Select poems of poets of witness (e.g., Split This Rock poets)
Short fiction by Toni Cade Bambera
Public opinion articles in the Washington Post or New York Times
WRTG 101.047, MTH 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Writing and Fighting: from the boxing ring to the MMA cage, fight writers
examine culture, race, gender and the human condition in a sport that
juxtaposes unrelenting aggression with heroic fortitude.
Professor Nancy Kidder
“At its moments of greatest intensity it seems to contain so complete and powerful an
image of life—life’s beauty, vulnerability, despair, incalculable and often self-destructive
courage—that boxing is life, and hardly a mere game.” Joyce Carol Oates, “On Boxing,”
New York Times Magazine, 1985.
“He came out proudly for the ninth, and stood and fought back with all he had, but
Marciano slugged him down, and he was counted out with his left arm hooked over the
middle rope as he tried to rise. It was a crushing defeat for the higher faculties and a
lesson in intellectual humility, but he had made a hell of a fight.” A.J. Liebling, “Ahab
and Nemesis,” New Yorker, October 8, 1955.
Prizefighting has inspired many of our finest journalists, essayists, fiction writers, and
filmmakers. From A.J. Liebling, Leonard Gardner, Richard Wright, James Baldwin,
George Plimpton and Norman Mailer to Joyce Carol Oates, David Remnick, Martin
Scorcese, Sylvester Stallone, David O. Russell, and Kerry Howley, the scene of two
humans fighting against each other in combat for sport has served as a window into
cultural moments and the setting for great stories. What is it about this spectacle that
compels our attention and inspires such art? In this class, we will examine the genre of
fight writing and fight stories with an eye towards the use of language to describe conflict
and the use of real and fictional fights and fighters to examine cultural issues. We will
study fiction, nonfiction, and film, as well as websites, blogs, and podcasts. We will look
at how writers have examined race in the context of fights and fighters, from the histories
of Joe Louis and Muhammed Ali to the iconic cinematic portrayals of Rocky and Raging
Bull. We will also discuss the significance of gender, as the rise of Mixed Martial Arts
has propelled female fighters like Ronda Rousey into what was once thought of as an
exclusively male domain. Since the goal of this writing seminar is to deepen and
complicate students’ academic skills, students will engage in scholarly research and build
upon their writing strategies. Fighting, like writing, is a combination of moves. From the
beginning hook to the supporting jabs to that final knockdown, writers must know their
audience and plan for their next punch.
WRTG 101.049, MTH 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
The Different Stages of Love
Professor Olympia Georgeson
What constitutes true romantic love? What are the stages of love before a couple reaches
“prosaic love?” As Tolstoy illustrates in Anna Karenina, “prosaic love” is loving one for
his or her integrity and constantly working on knowing oneself and the loved one as
evolving people in order to cultivate romantic and family love. Contrary to this belief, do
you side with Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s statement, “Love that is not madness is not
love?” We will read scientific and anthropological articles as well as popular sources
such as The New York Times and Psychology Today that address the brain’s chemical
alterations while in love and the difference between infatuation, obsession and love. This
course will examine both the nature and chemistry of love through focusing on nonfiction
readings and intensive research. Society’s common definition of love presents it as a
consuming force that takes over someone. Lovers “fall;” they are “head over heels,”
“struck,” and “crazy” for each other. With this theme as a backdrop for exploration, you
will continue developing your academic writing skills through peer review workshops,
research, student-teacher conferences, in-class discussion, small group work, and short
writing assignments.
WRTG 101.050, MTH 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Imagining the Future: Genetics in Popular Culture
Professor Leigha McReynolds
From the mainstream news media to Hollywood, our obsession with genetics suggests
that some of our strongest fears surround the human ability to manipulate DNA. Our
cultural preoccupation with this issue is rooted in the birth of eugenics at the end of the
nineteenth century. Since then, scientific progress has led us to contemplate the
potentially threatening consequences of technologies from cloning to gene therapy.
Imagining dystopic futures where genes determine one’s destiny or where expensive
procedures create a genetic underclass is far more common than depictions of progressive
futures where a democratic society is enhanced by access to lifesaving therapies. In this
class we will explore where these fears come from; what, exactly, we are so afraid of; and
how our fears about and the promises of genetic research and technology are represented
and manipulated.
We will consult popular science writing by both scientists and science journalists, works
of literary fiction, as well as popular movies and television shows in an effort to trace the
growth, evolution, and representation of our cultural concerns with genetic science. Your
written assignments for this class will ask you to synthesize scientific research, artistic
productions, and cultural analysis in order to address the intersections of genetics and
popular culture. Texts may include Darwin’s On The Origin of Species, Aldous Huxley’s
Brave New World, and the 1997 film Gattaca.
WRTG 101.053, TF 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Turf Wars
Professor Edward Helfers
What do ethics have to do with architecture? When do publicly funded projects stop
serving the public? Should all historical buildings be preserved? Does green design favor
the rich? How to accommodate sprawling populations? Is urban space a human right?
Who should decide how to develop our cities?
These are just some of the questions we will tackle in this course. Our readings draw
from a range of academic disciplines, including Architecture, Economics, Environmental
Science, History, Philosophy, and Sociology. Our discussions will explore the promises
and pitfalls of starchitect structures, master planned communities, and urban renewal
projects. We will look both near (AU’s campus plan) and far (Arcosanti, a southwestern
utopia), real (One World Trade Center) and imagined (Le Corbusier’s City of Tomorrow).
Through writing, we will come to a better understanding of how we shape our spaces,
and how our spaces shape us.
Because many of our case studies are local, students will be asked to conduct 2-3 site
visits, including the National Mall. Three major projects are required: Multi-Text
Analysis Essay, Research Essay, and Multi-Modal Presentation.
Texts may include:
The Most Beautiful House in the World by Wytold Rybczynski
Why Architecture Matters by Paul Goldberger
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
Green Manhattan by David Owen
Right to the City by David Harvey
Toxic Communities by Dorceta E. Taylor
WRTG 101.054, TF 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
“Infection in the sentence:” Plagues, People, and Prose
Professor Sarah Marsh
From the old Kiowa legend of a stranger named Smallpox and Daniel Defoe’s A Journal
of the Plague Year to contemporary accounts of Ebola and Zika virus, people seek to
understand epidemics by describing them with words. In doing so, these writers grapple
inevitably with vital questions about contagious disease: Does illness create immunity or
result from lack of it? Do race, class, sexual orientation, gender, or national affiliation
protect against disease? Does sickness create or merely mark social boundaries? What is
the relationship between imperialism and illness? How do the life cycles of
microorganisms inflect the stories we tell of sickness in a global culture? How do
scientific narratives of epidemics inflect our cultural practices, our economic models, and
our social behavior?
In this class we will use writing to explore these questions, taking seriously that words
and ideas—like diseases—are by their nature communicable; as the poet Emily
Dickinson’s famously observed: “Infection in the sentence breeds.” If scheduling permits,
students will do part of their research for this course at the National Library of Medicine.
WRTG 101.055, TF 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Food (and) Writing
Professor Heather McDonald
Did you know a cookbook can be a declaration of revolution? That a recipe can be the
story of a family? That cup of coffee in your hand can symbolize a country’s economy?
You might think food is just fuel; after this class, you’ll see much more than what’s on
your plate. Food writing is both personal and political; it explores individual and
collective memories, policy and politics, socio-economic classes, race, gender, and more.
From restaurant reviewers to memoirists, from journalists to foodways researchers, food
writers and scholars explore how their subject is both literal and metaphorical fuel for
individuals and communities. This course goes well beyond the idea that “food tastes
good.” We will examine the genre and fields as writers, by sharpening critical thinking
skills, practicing writing techniques, and honing research skills. Texts may include
essays, articles, podcasts, and films, by notable food writers and scholars like Ruth
Reichl, MFK Fisher, Pete Wells, Dan Barber, John T. Edge, Jessamyn Neuhaus, and
Psyche Williams-Forson. Writing texts may include Rewriting: How to Do Things With
Texts, by Joseph Harris, How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One, by Stanley
Fish, and EasyWriter, by Andrea Lunsford.
WRTG 101.056, TF 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Religion, Politics, and the Great Pumpkin
Professor Adam Tamashasky
Linus (of Peanuts fame) tells us these are the three things never to discuss with anyone.
Part of the reason for this advice might be that so many people haven’t read some of the
texts that have begun or altered conversations we have about the controversial issues of
our day (notably, abortion, religion, evolution, political and economic systems, and race
in the U.S.). This course aims to use a handful of these argument-driven texts to deepen
the lessons learned in WRTG 100; by studying these arguments to see how the theories
learned in 100 come to practical fruition (or die on the vine), you’ll continue honing your
college writing skills. We’ll read and study major Supreme Court decisions (like Roe v.
Wade, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, and Dred Scott v. Sandford),
influential books (like Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Freud’s Civilization and Its
Discontents, and excerpts of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations), and compact but
powerful tracts (like Marx’s & Engel’s Communist Manifesto, Thomas Paine’s Common
Sense, and Machiavelli’s The Prince). Expect daily reading, writing, and thinking (and,
spoilers, no Great Pumpkin).
WRTG 101.059, TF 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Pickling the Linguistic Turnip: Writing about Words and Discourse
Professor Kelly Joyner
“What [man] cannot express, he cannot conceive; what he cannot conceive is chaos, and
fills him with terror.” – Susanne K. Langer
“Believe me.” – Donald Trump
“Don’t ask, don’t tell.” – Bill Clinton
“It’s dangerous using words.” – Bob Garfield
We are surrounded by unexamined language. Face-to-face and online conversation . . .
written texts . . . live and recorded public speech . . . signs, posters, and advertisement . . .
song lyrics and shouts in the night. In this class, we’ll try to step back from ourselves and
the many texts around us and figure out what all this language is saying about who we
really are, what we believe and assume, what we tout, and what we hide. We’ll establish
an academic foundation with the help of the writers listed below, and we’ll create our
own scholarship by analyzing, close-reading, arguing, and speculating about words.
Writers we may read:
Malcolm Gladwell, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Susanne K. Langer, Michael
Lewis, John McWhorter, Geoffrey Nunberg, George Orwell, David Skinner, Deborah
Tannen, D.F. Wallace
WRTG 101.060, TF 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
A More Just World: Science and Social Justice
Professor Michael Moreno
The media today offer plenty of anxiety-inducing headlines about deaths at the hands of
villains, fighting factions, dictators, psychopaths and other unsavory sorts. But there are
even more terrifying killers against which we have limited means to defend ourselves.
They lurk in the rainforests, merrily moving from healthy host to human victim. They are
in the environment and getting into our food supply. They reside in our own bodies, just
waiting for the right moment to begin their siege. They are viruses, bacteria and mystery
molecules that turn our own bodies into disease factories.
On top of that, there are preventable illnesses – such as sexually transmitted diseases,
cardiovascular disease and diabetes – that affect certain populations disproportionately.
Plus, environmental factors, such as lead paint, air and water pollution, and food deserts,
make healthy living difficult for some.
In this class, we consider the past, present and possible future of disease and analyze
what the experts say can and should be done to keep us healthy and safe. We discuss
vulnerable populations and look at how racism, poverty and privilege relate to disease,
treatment and health outcomes. We write evidence-based arguments, personal essays and
other informative and persuasive documents.
Discussion and research topics include:
 The anti-vaccination movement, which has led to an increase in measles and
whooping cough;
 How the rise in autism diagnoses has spurred parental skepticism of the scientific
community;
 The stigma of HIV/AIDS and barriers to prevention in certain communities;
 Misconceptions about race and ethnicity held by health practitioners, which
affects quality of care and pain management;
 How past abuses by medical professionals have made certain populations wary of
participating in clinical trials and seeking treatment when needed;
 Achieving sex equality in biomedical studies and clinical trials so that the results
are valid across the board.
WRTG 101.061, TF 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Women’s Spaces
Professor Usha Vishnuvajjala
Virginia Woolf famously wrote that everyone, in order to write, needs a room of one's
own. For Woolf, the lack of such a space constituted a serious obstacle to women's
writing. But spaces for women, both individual and communal, have long been a concern
for writers, especially women writers. Since at least the Middle Age, women writers have
sought to imagine what a physical or metaphorical space for women might look like,
often aiming to create such a space through their writing, as with Charlotte Perkins
Gilman’s Herland. In this course, we will consider a variety of fiction, nonfiction, public
records, and journalism that seeks to construct or interrogate the idea of such women’s
spaces, including media such as The Toast and recent legislation that has attempted to
harness the idea of a “safe space” for women. Through our research and writing, which
will include an annotated bibliography and two research essays, as well as shorter
assignments, we will seek to understand how women’s spaces function imaginatively,
rhetorically, and politically.
Course texts might include:
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Turned”
North Carolina House Bill 2, “Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act” (The
“Bathroom Bill”)
Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Selections from The Toast
Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train
Excerpts from writings of Christine de Pisan, Queen Elizabeth I, Jane Austen, and others
WRTG 101.062, TF 4:05 p.m. – 5:20 p.m.
Entering the Enchanted Forest: Writing about Fairy Tales
Professor Alexa Landrus
Some of the first kinds of writing many of us encounter are fairy tales. We all remember
fairy tales from our youth, whether as stories or movies. What our families and the
movies did not tell us was that fairy tales are much more than children’s stories or light
entertainment for adults. Fairy tales are actually an attempt to pass on the social norms of
their cultures. This course investigates these narratives in the context of their longevity,
their origins, and their roles in media and popular culture. Our investigation will engage
with these texts in a variety of ways to focus on the ways language works in fairy tales to
code cultural values, anxieties, taboos, and more. Additionally, we will explore these
various texts and their language nuances to more deeply understand their cultural
purposes and influences on our culture and writing today, tracing their influence on the
coded cultural language in contemporary writing and media.
Major writing assignments may include a summary project that distills different versions
of a story down to its ur-story or tale type, a folk fairy tale interpretation, and a research
argument essay on a fairy tale where you directly engage with the text, fundamentally
agreeing or disagreeing with its central argument, citing secondary academic sources.
Texts may include:
The Great Fairy Tale Tradition by Jack Zipes
Into the Woods by James Lapine
The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by Bruno
Bettelheim
The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Maria Tatar
One Fairy Story Too Many by John Ellis
Selections may include “Mother Goose,” “Oscar the Mouse,” “Cinderella,” “Snow
White,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Red Riding
Hood,” “Snow Queen,” “Frog King,” “Frog Princess,” “Rapunzel,” “Rumplestilskin,”
“Hansel and Gretel,” “Mother Holle,” “Girl Without Hands,” “Jew Among Thorns,”
“Good Bargain,” and “The Ugly Duckling.”
WRTG 101.063, TF 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Passionate Prose: Literature, Law, and Social Justice
Professor Trisha Reichler
This course will examine the intersecting relationships among literature, law and social
justice. By examining fictional works such as To Kill a Mockingbird, non-fictional
narratives such as Just Mercy, and films such as A Civil Action, we will explore the
stories that tell how the injustices of the streets have led to the decisions of the Supreme
Court. Behind every landmark case is a powerful story of individual conflicts over our
most treasured values: free speech, equal rights, privacy, life, and death. What message
was Greg Johnson trying to convey when he doused the American flag with kerosene and
set it on fire? What can you say to a loved one suffering from a terminal illness who asks
you to assist in the act of suicide? How did Title IX, initially aimed at prohibiting gender
discrimination in the allocation of resources for college sports, end up protecting victims
of sexual harassment and assault? And, why was Bob Dylan, the voice of the antiwar
generation, chosen to receive the 2016 Nobel Prize for literature? Throughout the
semester we will use a rhetorical lens to explore how the struggles of the streets become
the law of the land.
WRTG 101.064, TF 12:55 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
What’s For Dinner?
Professor Erin Nunnally
While we all need food to live, how we go about satisfying that need varies in some
pretty extraordinary ways. Whether we frequent McDonald’s or avoid meat and animal
products altogether, we are constantly making choices about what we put into our bodies.
Choosing what to eat is something we can’t avoid, but lately that decision-making
process has become tricky at best in America. Popular documentaries like Supersize Me
and Food, Inc. have called into question not only the quality of the food we eat, but also
the ethics of the food industry behind it, and the effects not only on our health and wallet,
but on the economy and job market, of what we put on the table. Rather than a source of
comfort, for many, food has become a source of anxiety and stress. In this course, we will
examine the food industry in America – its influences, agendas, and impacts – and its
relationship to our culture and identity. We will examine rhetorical choices of advertisers,
doctors, and chefs, among others, that seek to influence our decisions and explore ways
in which food impacts other aspects of who we are. You will add your voice to the
conversation on food culture and industry through research-driven, argumentative essay
assignments, group presentations, and various smaller writing assignments throughout the
semester.
Texts may include:
Food Matters, ed. Holly Bauer
Writing With Style, John Trimble
Writing Tools, Roy Peter Clark
Excerpts from The New Yorker, Bon Appétit, and various news and academic sources
WRTG 101.066, MTH 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Exploring Ecological Engagements: The Personal, the Cultural, the Political
Professor Emily Russell
“The ecological crisis we face is so obvious that it becomes easy – for some, strangely or
frighteningly easy – to join the dots and see that everything is interconnected. This is the
ecological thought. And the more we consider it, the more our world opens up.” –
Timothy Morton, The Ecological Thought
Ecology, as Morton passionately proclaims, is not simply a thing that surrounds us,
staying nicely outside our political, cultural, and intimate interactions. It is a way of
thinking. More than that, it is a way of being in an interconnected world. We cannot
extricate ourselves from its embrace. Ecologies are biological, but they are also storied,
historied, digitized, computerized - very very old and very very new.
Throughout the course of this semester, we will engage with various ecologies. We will
ask ourselves how and where we - as humans, thinkers, and writers - fit within ecological
networks that are, at times, explicitly not human. For example, many of us rely heavily
on networks of cables, fibers, and electricity to carry out our everyday social interactions.
Even our own bodies are made of micro-organisms that are not exactly human. As we
work through what it means to be constantly entangled in these ecologies, we will
encounter instances of ecological crisis and use stories, essays, and our own research to
explore our own engagements, situations, and responsibilities within these moments of
crises - all with the goal of opening up our world and sharpening our writing and
research.
Texts may include:
Writing with Style, by John Trimble
How to Write a Sentence, by Stanley Fish
The Ecological Thought, by Timothy Morton
Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters, by Annie Dillard
Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description, by Tim Ingold
WRTG 101.067, MTH 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Girls, Not Just to Have and to Hold: Writing in Today's Feminist Tradition
Professor Kelsey Kerr
What is “modern” feminism and how can it inform a writer’s identity? How can it inform
a narrative? How can feminism, perspective, and morals center a writer’s place in culture,
in society? In this course, we will be exploring exactly that through poetry and essay, as
you uncover where you fit into this mode as a writer. We will also factor in influences
from the past election cycle of fall 2016, analyzing the rhetoric of the election in relation
to these texts and society. Buckle up, this ain’t locker room talk.
Texts may include:
The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks
The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich
Transformations by Anne Sexton
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
WRTG 101.068, MTH 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
On Expression and Deception: The Truth Behind Lies
Professor Chelsea Horne
Can you spot a liar? Have you ever wondered why some people are great at “reading” the
emotions and expressions of others? Is there a secret code? This course will dive into
current research to investigate the hard science behind emotions and expression. We will
work together to decode and demystify the “language” of facial expressions so that in
turn, we can better understand the modes of human communication. And further, we will
delve into the complexities of the human brain, setting out to explore the act of deception,
and its ramifications.
This class emphasizes researched writing and will provide you with core abilities such as
concepts of writing, writing process skills, reading/thinking skills, and research skills. To
do this, we will work with essays, novels, news articles, television and film clips, and
other popular and scholarly sources in order to develop in-depth understanding of how
and why humans express emotions the way way they do.
Possible Texts Include:
· Emotions Revealed by Paul Ekman
· Telling Lies by Paul Ekman
· The Archaeology of Mind by Jaak Panksepp
· Lie to Me (Fox TV Show)
· Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
· Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
WRTG 101.069, MTH 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Writing and Fighting: from the boxing ring to the MMA cage, fight writers
examine culture, race, gender and the human condition in a sport that
juxtaposes unrelenting aggression with heroic fortitude.
Professor Nancy Kidder
“At its moments of greatest intensity it seems to contain so complete and powerful an
image of life — life’s beauty, vulnerability, despair, incalculable and often selfdestructive courage — that boxing is life, and hardly a mere game.” Joyce Carol Oates,
“On Boxing,” New York Times Magazine, 1985.
“He came out proudly for the ninth, and stood and fought back with all he had, but
Marciano slugged him down, and he was counted out with his left arm hooked over the
middle rope as he tried to rise. It was a crushing defeat for the higher faculties and a
lesson in intellectual humility, but he had made a hell of a fight.” A.J. Liebling, “Ahab
and Nemesis,” New Yorker, October 8, 1955.
Prizefighting has inspired many of our finest journalists, essayists, fiction writers, and
filmmakers. From A.J. Liebling, Leonard Gardner, Richard Wright, James Baldwin,
George Plimpton and Norman Mailer to Joyce Carol Oates, David Remnick, Martin
Scorcese, Sylvester Stallone, David O. Russell, and Kerry Howley, the scene of two
humans fighting against each other in combat for sport has served as a window into
cultural moments and the setting for great stories. What is it about this spectacle that
compels our attention and inspires such art? In this class, we will examine the genre of
fight writing and fight stories with an eye towards the use of language to describe conflict
and the use of real and fictional fights and fighters to examine cultural issues. We will
study fiction, nonfiction, and film, as well as websites, blogs, and podcasts. We will look
at how writers have examined race in the context of fights and fighters, from the histories
of Joe Louis and Muhammed Ali to the iconic cinematic portrayals of Rocky and Raging
Bull. We will also discuss the significance of gender, as the rise of Mixed Martial Arts
has propelled female fighters like Ronda Rousey into what was once thought of as an
exclusively male domain. Since the goal of this writing seminar is to deepen and
complicate students’ academic skills, students will engage in scholarly research and build
upon their writing strategies. Fighting, like writing, is a combination of moves. From the
beginning hook to the supporting jabs to that final knockdown, writers must know their
audience and plan for their next punch.
WRTG 101.070, MTH 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
The Effects of War and Conflict on Civilian Populations
Professor Kelly White
War and conflict are generally discussed in terms of who’s fighting whom and why? But
this course will examine neither politics nor the movements of armies. Instead, we will
examine the effect of war on local populations. What does war do at the ground
level? Whom does it leave in its wake? How does a population recover? What happens
to those who flee warzones and those who stay? Loss of housing, medical services, and
food and water are devastating and often lead to the breakdown of civil society. How do
populations recover when conflicts end? We will consider the writings of people who
have felt the impact of war on their lives, families and livelihoods.
Major course requirements will include a personal narrative essay, a researched article,
and a researched formal academic essay.
Texts may include:
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War by Peter Maass
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, Stories
from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
Additional Essays and Articles
WRTG 101.071, MTH 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Women Aren’t Funny and Other Nonsense from the Patriarchy
Professor Allison Sparks
Google “Women aren’t funny.” Surprised to see how many people will still tell you that
this is true? Women in comedy has historically been a tricky business, to say the least.
But is the cultural moment for funny women finally here? In this seminar, we will
explore the careers of Joan Rivers, Tina Fey, Lena Dunham, Amy Schumer, Issa Rae and
more as they confront gender inequality on stage and screen, and off. Writers Caitlin
Moran, author of How to be a Woman, and Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist, will
enable us to view feminism through a comedic lens. Much like these funny ladies, who
strive not only to evoke laughter, but to challenge audiences to arrive at new ideas,
students will grapple with provocative material that inspire new ways of thinking.
Students will undertake their own research projects in order to become engaged in the
ongoing dialogue surrounding comedy and feminism. Has the comedy industry really
changed for the better? Or are these women simply refusing to be told, “women aren’t
funny?”
Texts will include:
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
And may include excerpts from:
Yes Please by Amy Poehler
Bossypants by Tina Fey
The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae
Not that Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
Relevant movies, stand up specials, TV episodes, essays and short stories
WRTG 101.072, MTH 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
The Language of Food
Professor Kate Wilson
Ever wondered why you are (or aren’t) willing to wait in a long line at Starbucks? Or
why it is you enter the supermarket with four items on your list but end up buying eight?
What’s the difference between “healthy” and “natural?” Maybe you just read that
chocolate is back on the “good food” list — should you go buy some? What costs are
there — both monetary and costs of other sorts — to how we eat? How do we know what
to believe when it comes to food?
Through class readings, fieldwork, research, and writing, you will explore the complex
nature of the food issues facing us today. Course texts may include Michael Pollen’s
Omnivore’s Dilemma (selections); Marion Nestle’s What to Eat (selections); Dan
Jurafsky’s The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu, and Alan Levinovitz’s
The Gluten Lie and Other Myths About What You Eat. Writing texts may include They
Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing and the AU edition of Easy
Writer.
WRTG 101.074, TF 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
“Haters Gonna Hate:” Better Writing Through Criticism
Professor Mike Cabot
We are surrounded by works of criticism. The internet provides an unending stream of
articles that rank and sort our cultural intake, from the “Top 10 Beyoncé Songs of All
Time,” to the “Best Local Sushi Bars.” But what is criticism good for? And who exactly
are these “critics” who often speak so poorly of the things that we like? Aren’t they just
“haters?” New York Times film critic A.O. Scott suggests that “everybody who criticizes
is a critic,” that it is human nature to judge our surroundings, which implicates us all. But
he also sees intellectual and artistic value in the work of a critic.
In this class, we’ll explore the deep connections between criticism and scholarly writing:
balancing skepticism with open-mindedness, avoiding premature and permanent
certainty, and developing logical and cogent arguments. We’ll use the work of
professional critics – who write about film, food, television, fashion, music, and culture –
to better understand the choices that writers make. Then, you will craft responses to art
and culture while sharpening your own choices of structure, style, and argument.
Ultimately, our goal will be to recognize the value of thinking critically about the things
we like, the things we love, and even the things we hate. We will take Scott’s advice and
“pay our own experience the honor of taking it seriously.”
Texts may include: A.O. Scott’s Better Living Through Criticism; Joseph Harris’
Rewriting; critical theory by the likes of Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and Susan Sontag;
works of criticism by Roger Ebert, Robin Givhan, Chuck Klosterman, Pete Wells,
Wesley Morris, Emily Nussbaum, and many others.
WRTG 101.075, TF 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Turf Wars
Professor Edward Helfers
What do ethics have to do with architecture? When do publicly funded projects stop
serving the public? Should all historical buildings be preserved? Does green design favor
the rich? How to accommodate sprawling populations? Is urban space a human right?
Who should decide how to develop our cities?
These are just some of the questions we will tackle in this course. Our readings draw
from a range of academic disciplines, including Architecture, Economics, Environmental
Science, History, Philosophy, and Sociology. Our discussions will explore the promises
and pitfalls of starchitect structures, master planned communities, and urban renewal
projects. We will look both near (AU’s campus plan) and far (Arcosanti, a southwestern
utopia), real (One World Trade Center) and imagined (Le Corbusier’s City of Tomorrow).
Through writing, we will come to a better understanding of how we shape our spaces,
and how our spaces shape us.
Because many of our case studies are local, students will be asked to conduct 2-3 site
visits, including the National Mall. Three major projects are required: Multi-Text
Analysis Essay, Research Essay, and Multi-Modal Presentation.
Texts may include:
The Most Beautiful House in the World by Wytold Rybczynski
Why Architecture Matters by Paul Goldberger
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
Green Manhattan by David Owen
Right to the City by David Harvey
Toxic Communities by Dorceta E. Taylor
WRTG 101.076, TF 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
“Touched with Fire:” Creativity & Madness
Professor Leah Johnson
Why have so many great artists—Vincent Van Gogh, Robert Schumann, Lord Byron,
Virginia Woolf—struggled with insanity? Is there a link between madness and creativity?
Is it necessary to be “a little mad” to create works of art? Or does the artist create in spite
of his/her madness? Is one’s creativity enhanced or hampered by extremes of
temperament? What price must the artist pay for his/her sensitivity? Where do we fall on
the spectrum of madness and sanity? How do we even begin to define these terms? We’ll
address these questions and others as we read memoirs of madness, theories about
madness, and creative transformations, deepening our understanding of the artistic
temperament and of the role madness may or may not play in the creative life of the
artist.
Texts:
Darkness Visible by William Styron (book)
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen (book)
An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison (book)
“A Melancholy of Mine Own” by Joshua Wolf Shenk (personal essay)
“Ghost in the House” by Donald Hall (personal essay)
“Having It Out with Melancholy” by Jane Kenyon (poem)
Pollock (film)
WRTG 101.077, TF 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
“Infection in the sentence:” Plagues, People, and Prose
Professor Sarah Marsh
From the old Kiowa legend of a stranger named Smallpox and Daniel Defoe’s A Journal
of the Plague Year to contemporary accounts of Ebola and Zika virus, people seek to
understand epidemics by describing them with words. In doing so, these writers grapple
inevitably with vital questions about contagious disease: Does illness create immunity or
result from lack of it? Do race, class, sexual orientation, gender, or national affiliation
protect against disease? Does sickness create or merely mark social boundaries? What is
the relationship between imperialism and illness? How do the life cycles of
microorganisms inflect the stories we tell of sickness in a global culture? How do
scientific narratives of epidemics inflect our cultural practices, our economic models, and
our social behavior?
In this class we will use writing to explore these questions, taking seriously that words
and ideas—like diseases—are by their nature communicable; as the poet Emily
Dickinson’s famously observed: “Infection in the sentence breeds.” If scheduling permits,
students will do part of their research for this course at the National Library of Medicine.
WRTG 101.078, TF 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Nothing About Us Without Us: Gendered Language, Identity, and Writing as
Resistance
Professor Marnie Twigg
“What are your pronouns?”
Have you ever asked or been asked this question?
Do you use or know someone who uses personal pronouns other than he or she? How
about ze, hir, or they as a singular pronoun?
Even if you’ve never heard of or used these pronouns before, you’re probably aware that
trans*, non-binary, and other gender variant folks are becoming increasingly visible in
U.S. culture. This shift has sparked (or reignited) many conversations about gender – and
not just about the bathrooms people are using.
In this class, you’ll investigate and enter these changing conversations about gender as it
overlaps with other identities, including race, class, religion, ethnicity, ability, sexuality,
immigrations status, and home language. Since this is a writing class, we’ll naturally start
with the most obvious ways that gender affects and reflects language. We’ll talk more
about pronouns. We’ll think about how writers chose to explain words important to
gender-related conversations – like feminism and intersectionality – based on their
experiences and their audiences. As we explore beyond these explicit connections
between writing and gender, we’ll use gender to help us engage concepts that are
necessary to the study of writing, including identity, authority, appropriation, and
assimilation. By doing so, we will discover new ways of thinking about our writing,
whether we’re writing about gender or not.
Writers We Will Read:
Gloria Anzaldúa, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Devon Carbado, Claudia Rankine, Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Kortney Ryan Ziegler, Julia Serano, JMase
III, Nico Dacumos, Dean Spade, Naeem Mohaiemen, Teju Cole, Audre Lorde, Judith
Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Halberstam, Janet Mock, Eric Stanley, Rocko
Buldagger, Jasbir Puar, Susan Stryker, Laverne Cox, and local LGBT+ writers.
WRTG 101.079, TF 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
A More Just World: Science and Social Justice
Professor Michael Moreno
The media today offer plenty of anxiety-inducing headlines about deaths at the hands of
villains, fighting factions, dictators, psychopaths and other unsavory sorts. But there are
even more terrifying killers against which we have limited means to defend ourselves.
They lurk in the rainforests, merrily moving from healthy host to human victim. They are
in the environment and getting into our food supply. They reside in our own bodies, just
waiting for the right moment to begin their siege. They are viruses, bacteria and mystery
molecules that turn our own bodies into disease factories.
On top of that, there are preventable illnesses – such as sexually transmitted diseases,
cardiovascular disease and diabetes – that affect certain populations disproportionately.
Plus, environmental factors, such as lead paint, air and water pollution, and food deserts,
make healthy living difficult for some.
In this class, we consider the past, present and possible future of disease and analyze
what the experts say can and should be done to keep us healthy and safe. We discuss
vulnerable populations and look at how racism, poverty and privilege relate to disease,
treatment and health outcomes. We write evidence-based arguments, personal essays and
other informative and persuasive documents.
Discussion and research topics include:
 The anti-vaccination movement, which has led to an increase in measles and
whooping cough;
 How the rise in autism diagnoses has spurred parental skepticism of the scientific
community;
 The stigma of HIV/AIDS and barriers to prevention in certain communities;
 Misconceptions about race and ethnicity held by health practitioners, which
affects quality of care and pain management;
 How past abuses by medical professionals have made certain populations wary of
participating in clinical trials and seeking treatment when needed;

Achieving sex equality in biomedical studies and clinical trials so that the results
are valid across the board.
WRTG 101.080, TF 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Food (and) Writing
Professor Heather McDonald
Did you know a cookbook can be a declaration of revolution? That a recipe can be the
story of a family? That cup of coffee in your hand can symbolize a country’s economy?
You might think food is just fuel; after this class, you’ll see much more than what’s on
your plate. Food writing is both personal and political; it explores individual and
collective memories, policy and politics, socio-economic classes, race, gender, and more.
From restaurant reviewers to memoirists, from journalists to foodways researchers, food
writers and scholars explore how their subject is both literal and metaphorical fuel for
individuals and communities. This course goes well beyond the idea that “food tastes
good.” We will examine the genre and fields as writers, by sharpening critical thinking
skills, practicing writing techniques, and honing research skills. Texts may include
essays, articles, podcasts, and films, by notable food writers and scholars like Ruth
Reichl, MFK Fisher, Pete Wells, Dan Barber, John T. Edge, Jessamyn Neuhaus, and
Psyche Williams-Forson. Writing texts may include Rewriting: How to Do Things With
Texts, by Joseph Harris, How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One, by Stanley
Fish, and EasyWriter, by Andrea Lunsford.
WRTG 101.081, TF 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Entering the Enchanted Forest: Writing about Fairy Tales
Professor Alexa Landrus
Some of the first kinds of writing many of us encounter are fairy tales. We all remember
fairy tales from our youth, whether as stories or movies. What our families and the
movies did not tell us was that fairy tales are much more than children’s stories or light
entertainment for adults. Fairy tales are actually an attempt to pass on the social norms of
their cultures. This course investigates these narratives in the context of their longevity,
their origins, and their roles in media and popular culture. Our investigation will engage
with these texts in a variety of ways to focus on the ways language works in fairy tales to
code cultural values, anxieties, taboos, and more. Additionally, we will explore these
various texts and their language nuances to more deeply understand their cultural
purposes and influences on our culture and writing today, tracing their influence on the
coded cultural language in contemporary writing and media.
Major writing assignments may include a summary project that distills different versions
of a story down to its ur-story or tale type, a folk fairy tale interpretation, and a research
argument essay on a fairy tale where you directly engage with the text, fundamentally
agreeing or disagreeing with its central argument, citing secondary academic sources.
Texts may include:
The Great Fairy Tale Tradition by Jack Zipes
Into the Woods by James Lapine
The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by Bruno
Bettelheim
The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Maria Tatar
One Fairy Story Too Many by John Ellis
Selections may include “Mother Goose,” “Oscar the Mouse,” “Cinderella,” “Snow
White,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Red Riding
Hood,” “Snow Queen,” “Frog King,” “Frog Princess,” “Rapunzel,” “Rumplestilskin,”
“Hansel and Gretel,” “Mother Holle,” “Girl Without Hands,” “Jew Among Thorns,”
“Good Bargain,” and “The Ugly Duckling.”
WRTG 101.082, TF 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
College Writing Seminar: The Politics of Personal Writing
Professor Andrew Bratcher
In his essay "Why I Write," George Orwell argues that all writing is political writing. In
this seminar, treating Orwell's claim as both a premise and a provocation, we will
immerse ourselves in political writing of various stripes, from Virginia Woolf's personal
essays and Joan Didion's reportage to James Agee's immersive manifestos and Claudia
Rankine's poetry. In addition to exposure to a diverse range of authors, essays, and ideas
about writing, the course will give you the opportunity to attempt and refine original
pieces of writing in a safe and encouraging community of peers, to hone your research
and reporting skills, to interrogate and nuance your own political and literary convictions,
to think deeply about the role of the writer in political discourse, and to become a more
thoughtful and empathetic reader and editor of others' work, as well as your own.
WRTG 101.084, MTH 4:05 p.m. – 5:20 p.m.
Persuasive Writing: Using Complexity to Create Stronger Arguments
Professor Bron Treanor
"Indeed, you will often find that knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know
into a coherent pattern.” - Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow
Too often, arguments rely on rhetoric that speaks only to the like-minded. This kind of
argument creates insular groups with no room for growth and understanding. By
exploring and utilizing the inherent complexity of our world, we will be able to craft
well-researched and well-written arguments that stand a chance of making a difference.
This class will make use of diverse materials and extensive library research to create
clear, concise, and persuasive arguments. While we will be reading a variety of texts,
writing will be the bulk of the class. Books: TBD
WRTG 101.085, MTH 4:05 p.m. – 5:20 p.m.
Girls, Not Just to Have and to Hold: Writing in Today's Feminist Tradition
Professor Kelsey Kerr
What is “modern” feminism and how can it inform a writer’s identity? How can it inform
a narrative? How can feminism, perspective, and morals center a writer’s place in culture,
in society? In this course, we will be exploring exactly that through poetry and essay, as
you uncover where you fit into this mode as a writer. We will also factor in influences
from the past election cycle of fall 2016, analyzing the rhetoric of the election in relation
to these texts and society. Buckle up, this ain’t locker room talk.
Texts may include:
The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt
Gender Trouble, Judith Butler
Feminism is for Everybody, bell hooks
The Dream of a Common Language, Adrienne Rich
Transformations, Anne Sexton
The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson
Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay
WRTG 101.092, TF 4:05 p.m. – 5:20 p.m.
What’s For Dinner?
Professor Nunnally
While we all need food to live, how we go about satisfying that need varies in some
pretty extraordinary ways. Whether we frequent McDonald’s or avoid meat and animal
products altogether, we are constantly making choices about what we put into our bodies.
Choosing what to eat is something we can’t avoid, but lately that decision-making
process has become tricky at best in America. Popular documentaries like Supersize Me
and Food, Inc. have called into question not only the quality of the food we eat, but also
the ethics of the food industry behind it, and the effects not only on our health and wallet,
but on the economy and job market, of what we put on the table. Rather than a source of
comfort, for many, food has become a source of anxiety and stress. In this course, we will
examine the food industry in America – its influences, agendas, and impacts – and its
relationship to our culture and identity. We will examine rhetorical choices of advertisers,
doctors, and chefs, among others, that seek to influence our decisions and explore ways
in which food impacts other aspects of who we are. You will add your voice to the
conversation on food culture and industry through research-driven, argumentative essay
assignments, group presentations, and various smaller writing assignments throughout the
semester.
Texts may include:
Food Matters, ed. Holly Bauer
Writing With Style, John Trimble
Writing Tools, Roy Peter Clark
Excerpts from The New Yorker, Bon Appétit, and various news and academic sources
WRTG 101.094, TF 4:05 p.m. – 5:20 p.m.
Nothing About Us Without Us: Gendered Language, Identity, and Writing as
Resistance
Professor Marnie Twigg
“What are your pronouns?”
Have you ever asked or been asked this question?
Do you use or know someone who uses personal pronouns other than he or she? How
about ze, hir, or they as a singular pronoun?
Even if you’ve never heard of or used these pronouns before, you’re probably aware that
trans*, non-binary, and other gender variant folks are becoming increasingly visible in
U.S. culture. This shift has sparked (or reignited) many conversations about gender-- and
not just about the bathrooms people are using.
In this class, you’ll investigate and enter these changing conversations about gender as it
overlaps with other identities, including race, class, religion, ethnicity, ability, sexuality,
immigrations status, and home language. Since this is a writing class, we’ll naturally start
with the most obvious ways that gender affects and reflects language. We’ll talk more
about pronouns. We’ll think about how writers chose to explain words important to
gender-related conversations – like feminism and intersectionality – based on their
experiences and their audiences. As we explore beyond these explicit connections
between writing and gender, we’ll use gender to help us engage concepts that are
necessary to the study of writing, including identity, authority, appropriation, and
assimilation. By doing so, we will discover new ways of thinking about our writing,
whether we’re writing about gender or not.
Writers we will read:
Gloria Anzaldúa, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Devon Carbado, Claudia Rankine, Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Kortney Ryan Ziegler, Julia Serano, JMase
III, Nico Dacumos, Dean Spade, Naeem Mohaiemen, Teju Cole, Audre Lorde, Judith
Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Halberstam, Janet Mock, Eric Stanley, Rocko
Buldagger, Jasbir Puar, Susan Stryker, Laverne Cox, and local LGBT+ writers.
WRTG 101.095, TF 4:05 p.m. – 5:20 p.m.
“Haters Gonna Hate:” Better Writing Through Criticism
Professor Mike Cabot
We are surrounded by works of criticism. The internet provides an unending stream of
articles that rank and sort our cultural intake, from the “Top 10 Beyoncé Songs of All
Time,” to the “Best Local Sushi Bars.” But what is criticism good for? And who exactly
are these “critics” who often speak so poorly of the things that we like? Aren’t they just
“haters?” New York Times film critic A.O. Scott suggests that “everybody who criticizes
is a critic,” that it is human nature to judge our surroundings, which implicates us all. But
he also sees intellectual and artistic value in the work of a critic.
In this class, we’ll explore the deep connections between criticism and scholarly writing:
balancing skepticism with open-mindedness, avoiding premature and permanent
certainty, and developing logical and cogent arguments. We’ll use the work of
professional critics – who write about film, food, television, fashion, music, and culture –
to better understand the choices that writers make. Then, you will craft responses to art
and culture while sharpening your own choices of structure, style, and argument.
Ultimately, our goal will be to recognize the value of thinking critically about the things
we like, the things we love, and even the things we hate. We will take Scott’s advice and
“pay our own experience the honor of taking it seriously.”
Texts may include: A.O. Scott’s Better Living Through Criticism; Joseph Harris’
Rewriting; critical theory by the likes of Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and Susan Sontag;
works of criticism by Roger Ebert, Robin Givhan, Chuck Klosterman, Pete Wells,
Wesley Morris, Emily Nussbaum, and many others.
WRTG 101.096, TF 8:10 a.m. – 9:25 p.m.
Music as a Reaction to Societal Ills and as a Source of Community
Professor Bruce Miller
From homemade banjo-like stringed instruments employed by rural Malawians, Florida
musician Moses Williams fashioning a one-stringed instrument out of a door, to Nigerian
Afro beat pioneer Fela Kuti’s slogan that “music is a weapon”, various types of sound art
have been used to stare down poverty, radicalize groups of people into a movement for
social justice, or simply allow us all to recognize something about where we come from.
In this course, we will survey writing, performance, video, documentary, and no doubt
some deep listening in order to craft our own writing, and perhaps opinion, on the
subject. Along the way, we’ll take on everything from urban free jazz, rural folk and the
complexities inherent in semi-known folk-pop hybrids from Mauritania to Thailand.
Students will craft three major papers that can trace anything from origins of a particular
musical form and how it was shaped by environment to musical statements, both cultural
and political, to various folk traditions, and how they are either preserved or threatened.
There may also be a chance to write short reviews or other commentary on the
importance of an artist or style.
Texts may include:
Alan Lomax’s The Land Where the Blues Began (video)
Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life
Francis Bebey’s African Music: A People’s Art
Photo collections of early phonograph memorabilia from around the globe
Reebee Garofalo’s Rockin’ The Boat: Mass Music and Mass Movements
Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony
…and of course, select recordings to enhance what we discuss and write about.
WRTG 101.097, TF 4:05 p.m. – 5:20 p.m.
Persuasive Writing: Using Complexity to Create Stronger Arguments
Professor Bron Treanor
"Indeed, you will often find that knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know
into a coherent pattern.” - Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow
Too often, arguments rely on rhetoric that speaks only to the like-minded. This kind of
argument creates insular groups with no room for growth and understanding. By
exploring and utilizing the inherent complexity of our world, we will be able to craft
well-researched and well-written arguments that stand a chance of making a difference.
This class will make use of diverse materials and extensive library research to create
clear, concise, and persuasive arguments. While we will be reading a variety of texts,
writing will be the bulk of the class.
Books: TBD
WRTG 101.098, TF 4:05pm-5:20pm
Survival and Identity
Professor Brendon Vayo
Civilization bestows the wonders of cell phones, the internet, and the unlimited stream of
movies and television shows, but Henry David Thoreau worried that the comforts, and
conformity, of civilization denies us our identity. “We do not ride on the railroad,” he
warned, “it rides upon us.” Karl Marx also predicts that if we dedicate our lives to
material obsessions, it would determine our consciousness, the way we perceive the
world. We buy products and thus we become one; to borrow from René Descartes, we do
not “know thyself.” Thus, some travel to the wilderness, the antithesis of
civilization. There, they deprive themselves of materials and people in order to
(re)discover their identity; they try to “know thyself.” In the texts for this class, we will
see an example of one young man struggle to survive, and die. And in two others, we
will see a young man and a young woman struggle, and live.
These experiences will lead us to provocative questions: Does evidence exist that
these people “knew” themselves any better because of their struggle to survive? If so,
how has their concept of identity been altered? What might this insight into identity be?
Texts may include:
Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say, I Say. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2010.
Krakaeur, Jon. Into the Wild. New York: Anchor Books, 1996.
Lunsford, Andrea A. Easy Writer. 4th edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010.
Ralston, Aron. Between a Rock and a Hard Place. New York: Atria, 2010.
Strayed, Cheryl. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. New
York: Vintage, 2013.