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3020 Topics in Writing:

The following list is alphabetical, by course title. Not every course shown below is offered every semester. Check the current Course Schedule.

AFTER THE HOLOCAUST, UNFINISHED BUSINESS, Judith Lavinsky
The late Simon Wiesenthal devoted his whole adult life to the pursuit of justice for those killed or damaged by the Holocaust. When the last participants—victims, persecutors, and bystanders—are all gone and the events we describe with that term become just a painful part of our distant cultural history, will achieving justice finally cease to be an issue? Evidently not. Writers too young to have played a part in the events described by the term Holocaust are still confronting the problem of justice as part of the unfinished business that drives their work. For this course we'll read fiction and non-fiction by W.G. Sebald, Hannah Krall, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Simon Wiesenthal. This is a writing workshop which will use your own writing as the principal text for the course. Expect to write two or three major expository papers, each of which will go through numerous revisions.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND, Dr. Paul Murphy
This is a topic-based writing course centered upon Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. We will begin the semester by discussing the story, and throughout the semester we will be looking at a number of published critical essays concerning Carroll's work. The focus of the course, however, will be upon student writing. Students will work on two major writing projects, culminating in one essay that takes an analytical approach to the story, and one that argues against another critical viewpoint.

AMERICAN ROAD TRIP, Dr. Ginger Knowlton
The focus of your writing this term will be an examination of the social forces that facilitate the American longing for the open road. In what ways might these forces, these exploratory impulses, be distinctly American, and in which ways are they more central to the essence of human character? If these forces are universal, then how do they shape themselves in an American landscape, or overseas? What is the role of place in literature; what is its role in shaping consciousness? What do we seek to learn through travel? Can travel teach us anything about the value of slowing down or speeding up? Can it give us any insight into the human character that lies beneath cultural trappings? Through your writing this term, you will examine social construction and philosophy as it relates to place and movement.

ART OF THE SCREENPLAY, Steven Wingate
In this course, students will closely examine screenplays of Hollywood and independent films and write analytical or comparative essays about issues of craft. This is not intended to be a course about meaning, but about method; our emphasis throughout will be how effects of character development, pacing, dramatic structure, etc., are achieved by screenwriters. The course is intended to open lasting discussions on questions of craft for both aspiring screenwriters and casual filmgoers. We will consider such films as The Usual Suspects, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Memento, Lantana, etc.

BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS, Dr. Erik Ellis
In this course we'll explore the exciting, diverse genre of the essay, drawing upon selections from the Best American Essays series. What rhetorical appeals and strategies do prize-winning essayists use to identify with and persuade readers? How can your understanding of their work strengthen your own analytical and argumentative writing? You'll write several short essays, as well as two 5-7 page essays, for a variety of purposes and audiences. Your own writing will be the main focus of the course.

BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, Tobin von der Nuell
Working under the concept that "everything is an argument," we will explore the realm of contemporary American short stories to shape and defend arguable opinions. We first will work through the challenges of reading stories critically to discern what questions they raise. Next we will derive working issues to frame arguments, and then we will analyze the text to find evidence to support our claims in defense of a thesis. We will shape arguments to convince a variety of audiences to our opinions. We will not be crafting short stories in the class; on the contrary, we will work hard to learn how to pull stories apart and argue within the confines of their data. The stories will come from such sources as the Best American Short Stories series, The New Yorker, Harper's, and The Atlantic Monthly.

BIOMEDICAL ETHICS, Don Wilkerson
We will use current issues in biomedical ethics to study the basic elements of an argument. We will write three papers, the first of which will be patterned after the MCAT writing test. This assignment is designed to introduce students to the basic elements of awritten analysis. (The assignment might also offer valuable test-taking preparation to students planning to take the MCAT.) In the second paper, students will respond to a fictional case study or public policy scenario in light of some of the common ethical precepts that inform biomedical debate. This assignment is designed to help students develop a sense of audience and to teach them how to summarize and refute counterarguments. In the last paper, students will perform one of the following tasks: they will refute a brief essay on a current issue in biomedical ethics, or they will analyze an existing policy or professional code to show that it is unlikely to achieve its stated ends. This is not a survey course in biomedical ethics; instead, we will use issues in biomedical ethics as a framework for developing the students' skills as writers and analytical thinkers.

CITIZENSHIP AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT, Michelle Albert

What does it mean to be a personally responsible and participatory citizen in a democratic society? How can a private citizen sway public policy? In this course, you will explore the meaning of concepts such as civic engagement, community, citizenship, values and beliefs, ethics, and activism. You will examine the relationship between your personal values and your public actions,andcultivate habits of questioning, analysis, and reflection that make you more informed and self-aware community members. This is a service-learning course, so you will be required to spend significant time outside of class volunteering with a community organization. The instructor will select the organizations before each semester begins to make sure they are a good fit for the course. In Fall 2008, because of the unique opportunities presented by the election season, the instructor will select a variety of political and civic organizations and/or issues-focused groups that are actively working on election-related matters.

COMPOSING CIVIC LIFE, Dr. Marlia Banning

In this course, we consider what it means to be a citizen and a member of a public in a democracy. A functioning democracy relies on informed publics who have access to diverse perspectives on matters of significance to them and to society as a whole, as well as a government that is responsive to the will of its people. Because both informed publics and a responsive government are so pivotal to democracy, the course asks what the possibilities and realities are of informed publics and the ability of citizens to influence public policy in the contemporary U.S.

COMPOSING KNOWLEDGE, Dr. Rolf Norgaard
Higher education has its own rules—rules about who is heard, who is silenced, what counts as knowledge, what works as persuasion. Students must learn a new set of conventions, a secret handshake if you will, as they enter college and become apprenticed in a particular discipline. This course will consider how we “compose” knowledge, and in the process it will offer some “composing knowledge.” We’ll read essays on academic culture drawn from a variety of disciplines and perspectives, with the goal of providing students intellectual tools for investigating their own ways across the university experience. Three short essays will lay the foundation for an extended project of the student’s own design that incorporates ethnographic fieldwork on one facet of academic culture.

CONVERSATIONS ON THE LAW, Kathy Pieplow
The law pervades American society: from the O.J. Simpson trial to Judge Judy, from contracts to traffic tickets. Through our writings, we will discuss the law as its own creation and as a civilizing force. Topics for exploration may include the unique language of the law, how the law is viewed by those inside and outside of the profession, the development of common law versus statutory law, alternatives to "the law," and the law in other societies.

CROSS-CULTURAL WRITING AND FILM, Tony Ruiz
Reading in a variety of narratives and genres, from different cultural conditions and locations, is one of the pleasures of this course. For the moment, we will consider film as a way to travel cultures; such encounters are one of the ethical concerns of the course. Readings in "visual culture" scholarship serve as our critical guide. Authors include James Baldwin, Bharati Mukherjee, Orhan Pamuk; films include "Babel" (Inarritu) and "Strawberry and Chocolate" (Alea). We will devote special attention to prose style, studying what makes good writing as well as practice ways to adopt these models. Several response papers and quizzes, a few short analytical essays, and one longer research essay. Text: "The New World Reader"

DON'T FENCE ME IN, Dr. Jay Ellis
"I don't know what happens to country." — John Grady Cole in All the Pretty Horses. How is it that Americans feel entitled to open spaces, with privacy somehow included? This course studies the aesthetics of, ambivalence about, and violence in American spaces (real and imagined) to provide students with a field of inquiry for writing well researched and radically revised academic essays. We will range widely from poetry and fiction through spatial theory in two progressions. Progression I, Dimensional American Fictions, leads through brief exercises to a revised close reading essay on literature or film. Progression II, Histories and Theories of Space, explores the violence that tensions over space elicit in art and life; students weave extensive research through several revisions of an interdisciplinary essay. Readings may include poetry from Emily Dickinson to Walt Whitman; fiction from Chester Himes to Flannery O'Connor and Cormac McCarthy; and brief selections of non-fiction from F. J. Turner to Michel de Certeau and contemporary journalists. We will study one film, such as Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven . All students are welcome: close reading skills, advanced research, attention to the writing process, and stylistic prowess are goals of - not prerequisites to - this class.

DYSTOPIAS ON FILM, Dr. Jim Walker
Films like The Matrix, Bladerunner, and Brazil dramatize not just futuristic fictions, but present-day fears, questions and social concerns. What is the nature of intelligence (artificial or otherwise) and how do our answers to this reflect on what it means to be human? How do we define or “know” reality and how is technology challenging this? What are the limits of government in overseeing, protecting, or policing our personal freedoms – and what are our responsibilities? The course uses recent filmic representations of dystopias – that is, anti-utopias or worlds-gone-wrong – to address these and other issues. Students are encouraged and assisted in developing their own analytical and creative responses, which may be based on films, written texts, secondary sources, and/or concepts – including current trends or events. Why and how have artists at least since Plato turned to imagined worlds to discuss the here and now? Why is it we so often fear what we create? What is the nature of the world we are creating?

EDUCATION/GOVERNMENT/GOOD STATE, Tim Lyons
In this course, we will explore the connections between education, authority (particularly governmental), and our efforts to bring about a good society. Readings will include such works as Plato's Republic and Crito, Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority, Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society, and may include other writings such as those of Alfie Kohn, John Taylor Gatto, Harold Bloom, Adrienne Rich, and others. In personal research projects, students can explore current issues (e.g. No Child Left Behind, bi-lingual education, Ebonics, the role of religion in public education, current funding priorities) or more general concerns (e.g. the role of church and/or state in the formation of educational programs and curricula).

FEMINISM AND MOTHERHOOD, Cindy Moran
How do motherhood and feminism define, reflect and--perhaps--contradict one another? This class will look at the roles, stereotypes and rhetoric of motherhood in the 21st century. How do we define who/what is a mother in contemporary discourse? Is "motherhood" a role exclusively occupied by women? Can one be a feminist stay at home mom? Do the "mommy wars" exist or is it a media construction? How do activist moms (Cindy sheehan, Moms Acting Up, and "lactivists") challenge the traditional ideas of motherhood? These questions and others will be under investigation in this course. Readings may include writings by Naomi Wolf and Susan Douglas. Writing assignments will include shorter analysis and response papers, a larger analysis and argument essay, and a research project.

FILM NOIR AND NEW-NOIR, Molly LeClair
This course teaches students to write analyses and arguments about film noir, an indigenous American style of filmmaking. We will explore its aesthetic and literary origins in German expressionism and American detective and crime fiction. We will examine significant themes, characterizations, visual elements, and recurring icons that create the style's distinctive identity, and chart filmnoir's incursion into contemporary cinema. Finally, we will look at the way in which ethnic and gender issues are reflected in noir narratives. Students will write three major papers: an analysis, a critical review, and an argument. The class will be conducted as a guided seminar, and all major papers will undergo revisions and peer reviews.

FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD, Juliet Wittman
Food, Glorious Food examines the ways in which we think, talk and write about a topic that is deeply personal, but that also defines cultures and sometimes drives world politics. We will discuss such topics as the Slow Food movement, hunger, obesity in America, food issues in international trade, the history and culture of cuisine or of specific foodstuffs, the role of food in film andthe use of food as both metaphor and subject matter in fiction. Students will write three brief papers, including a personal essay, and one longer research paper.

GENDER AND SEXUALITY, Amy Goodloe
We will investigate a variety of claims made about gender, sexuality and relationships, including competing claims made by scientists and social constructionists. We will examine the assumptions and values on which these claims are based and we will evaluate the validity of the reasoning, evidence and rhetorical devices used to support them. You will write several short analytical papers in response to readings and documentaries about related issues, such as gender roles, transsexual and intersexidentities, alternatives to monogamy, and the marriage movement. You will also complete a course project in which you develop and defend a sustained critique of a particular essay. A variety of homework assignments and in-class activities will help you improve the skills you need to successfully complete these assignments. This course will also further strengthen your skills in reading critically, composing strong paragraphs, evaluating and using outside sources, targeting specific audiences, revising for clarity and conciseness, and editing for publication.

HOMER'S DAUGHTERS: FEMINIST ODYSSEYS OF THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES, Dr. Veronica House
In this course we will study modern feminist re-imaginings of one of the most important texts in literary history, Homer’s Odyssey. After we ground ourselves with a reading of Homer, we will begin our investigation into 20th-century Odysseys. Possible texts include Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Margaret Atwood’s “Circe/ Mud Poems” and The Penelopiad, and Louise Glück’s collection of poems, Meadowlands. We will end the course with pop culture representations of The Odyssey in television and film. The subject of feminist literary revision and its relation to language, expression, and argument is particularly apt for a writing course that will stress your own process of revision. Discussions and papers will address questions concerning “the canon,” literary and cultural legitimacy, gender, race, and genre as we attempt to determine why the ancient epic continues to be so influential, inspirational, and problematic for women writing in the 20th and 21st centuries.

KING LEAR AND GREEK TRAGEDY, Dr. Joan Lord Hall

The class will first spend a few weeks engaged in close reading, discussion, and written response to the two major texts: Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Shakespeare’s King Lear. Both plays depict the tragic downfall of a king in a pagan society; both incorporate themes of blindness followed by knowledge through suffering; and in both plays women play instrumental roles. Students will develop critical inquiry based on contrasts (e.g. over the question of the hero’s responsibility for his downfall) as well as similarities between the plays. They will analyze how far Aristotle’s criteria in The Poetics illuminate the texts and may also evaluate short excerpts of filmed versions of King Lear. As well as completing a number of short written assignments, students will hone their understanding of rhetorical strategies and awareness of audience as they work on two major papers: one analysis, one argument paper (which will incorporate research into other critical approaches to the plays). These papers will progress through revision based on workshopping them both in the full class, with guidance from the instructor, and in smaller peer groups.

MOUNTAIN PLACES, MOUNTAIN PEOPLE, Dr. Tracy Ferrell

Here in Boulder, mountains play a key role in shaping our everyday lives, much as they have for peoples in various cultures from Ancient Greece to the Buddhists of Tibet. Whether seen as abode of the gods, as hermetic spiritual retreat, or as modern recreational playgrounds, mountains hold a central place in human imagination and endeavor. This course will focus on the effects of mountain spaces on human cultural production, as well as the effects that mountain cultures have on their immediate environment. The first part of the course will focus on the largest mountains on earth, the Himalaya, and the Tibetan and Nepalese cultures that inhabit them. Secondly, we will move our focus to the South American Andes and the Quechua and Aymara populations of Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. Finally, the course wil look at modern Western interactions with the mountains, from the miners of the recent Rocky Moutnain past to the mountaineers and skiers of today.

MULTI-CULTURAL RHETORICS, Dr. Andrea Feldman
This course will ask students to write analyses and arguments based on readings that reflect our multi-cultural heritage. In responding to texts that represent cultural diversity, students will evaluate issues and relate them to their own multi-cultural experiences. Through these readings as well as class discussion of written assignments, students will learn to make reasoned arguments in defense of their own opinions. By examining diverse voices, this course helps students meet the challenges of academic writing. The need for a cross-cultural writing course becomes more apparent as the United States becomes ever more interdependent with its worldwide neighbors. Students need to join this "global village" by thinking critically about the roles of writing and language in forging a multi-cultural society. Because language and writing are necessarily culturally bound, diverse aspects of our own culture are often neglected in traditional writing courses. This course offers a chance to examine and debate concerns which are all too often undervalued or ignored. Language -- often a tool to disenfranchise -- can thereby become a tool to meld.

NATIVE AMERICAN TOPICS, Catherine Kunce
In 1900-1901 the Sioux Indian Zitkala-Sa published a series of articles that helped her become the 'darling' of Boston literati for a short time. But one critic claimed that Zitkala-Sa "injures herself and harms...the race from which she spring." By analyzing Zitkala-Sa's collected writings and by dissecting her critic's charge, we will attempt to discover why her stories repelled some and charmed others. We will then explore some contemporary American Indian works to see if we can discern similar patterns of accommodation and rupture of audience expectations.

NEW YORKER NONFICTION, Susan Daney
This course uses recent articles/essays from The New Yorker magazine for its readings. Some articles provoke questions about the rhetorical intent of the magazine's writers; others argue about contemporary issues that raise questions and demand answers. In the variety of articles offered-- reviews of movies, art, dance, TV, music, books; profiles of artists, politicians, sport figures, dog trainers, etc.; memoirs, personal narratives, Life and Letters (a look at a writer's career); Letters from foreign countries; legal, medical, political essays; humor pieces and covers of the magazine-- everyone can find something interesting to respond to. After a series of introductory short papers written during the reading period, students write two longer papers, one analytical and one argumentative. Because close reading and critical thinking contribute to the logic of a paper, class discussions focus on these skills.

QUEER RHETORICS, Charles Doersch
We will consider Queer and all of its slippery connotations. By examining issues of heterosexual privilege, identity politics, social-constructivist theory, and marginalized sexualities, we will indeed 'queer the pitch.' It is not mandatory that you be a self-identified queer to be a part of this course, although an interest in queer perspectives is necessary. I hope to offer a creative and intellectually challenging space that is safe, but not benign. This course is designed to challenge your assumptions about all things queer and straight. We will use a variety of writing strategies, in a workshop-based setting, from composing a personal narrative/coming-out story to writing a lengthy and well-researched argumentative paper. Possible "texts" include: Queer Theory: an Introduction by Annamarie Jagose; Tongues Untied, a film by Marlon Riggs; Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein; Miss Vera's Cross-Dressing for Success; The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler; Paris is Burning, a film by Jeannie Livingston; Sissies' Scrapboo, a drama by Larry Kramer; Stop Kiss, a drama by Diane Son.

RACE, CLASS, GENDER, Dr. Damien Doyle
This course is designed to develop your critical thinking and analytical skills and teach you how to communicate and display in writing the quality of your critical thinking on complex issues. The course focuses on the intricacies of close critical reading, and are investigates and interrogates various models of academic and civic discourses around issues of race, class, gender and sexuality. While lower division writing classes focus on teaching basics of written communication and on introducing you to academic discourse, this upper division course concentrates on teaching you to use research to closely examine the dialogue on an issue, and then to do scholarly research in order to respond to the multiple forms of writing required at the university, including reports, summaries, analysis and argumentation. Over the course of the semester your writing will move from personal narrative to persuasion and analysis. You will acquire a level of expertise on an issue through library research and compile your findings in a research proposal. At the end of the research you will present your findings to the class. This research proposal provides the foundations for your final persuasive paper. Each paper is developed and crafted through drafting and work-shop

READING AND WRITING CULTURE, Dr. Lynda McNeil
The primary purpose of this course is to help you develop critical thinking skills by writing clear, interesting, and well-organized essays for an academic audience. The course will focus on two principal modes of academic discourse: analysis and argument. The course begins with a focus on close reading of a scholarly work by an oral historian and fieldworker. Your first writing assignment will be a position paper (analysis and synthesis) about our packet readings on oral history. Next, your longer writing project will entail academic research about an oral history topic that you devise, followed by two related (sequential) writing assignments: first, a proposal and literature review and, secondly, an argumentative research essay that makes an argumentative claim about a debated issue related to your chosen oral history topic. For the initial critical reading unit of the course, you will keep a writer's portfolio for questions and discussions, which will be submitted for a grade at the end of the course. Because workshopping student papers will be a central part of this course, you will act either as a major or a minor reviewer for fellow students’ drafts, as well as receive constructive criticism of your drafts from them. Be prepared not only to write in and out of class, but also to revise your drafts submitted for a grade. While background knowledge in anthropology, history, or sociology may be beneficial, it is not a prerequisite.

READING AND WRITING CULTURE, Dr. Sarah Massey-Warren
This course will investigate all the vagaries, assumptions, attitudes, and issues arising from concepts of "culture." What do we mean by culture? In what context? How do we identify "us" as a culture (or can we) and separate "us" from "them"? How do we "read" other cultures and talk or write about them? Can one draw lines between cultures? Looking at cultures within the United States and around the world, students will engage in intensive class discussions, write a variety of short narrative and analytical papers, participate in class presentations, and produce a longer argumentative project addressing cross cultural issues. Texts include the students' own work, fiction and nonfiction works, and films. We also will have guest speakers from diverse places (South Africa, Korea, and Germany).

RHETORIC OF ANIMALS AND ANIMALITY, Dr. Lynn Sokei
In this course, we will discuss key figures in Western philosophy whose ideas have shaped long-standing views of animals and, ultimately, human beings. Our readings will draw connections between ideas of animality and issues such as slavery, misogyny, and ideals of the “normal” human body and sexuality. We will also discuss topics such as animal rights, the keeping of pets, factory farming, and the use of animals in scientific research. Our major writing assignments will consist of three persuasive essays incorporating research. Each essay will be workshopped and revised before being submitted for a grade. We will end with a collaborative, multimedia project and reflective essay about the project, the readings, and one’s writing during the course.

RHETORICAL CRITICISM, Dalyn Luedtke
In this course, students will engage in a systematic, prolonged inquiry into one rhetorical artifact to gain an understanding of different rhetorical strategies, how they interact, and how they produce specific meanings. In order to do so, students will pick one rhetorical event or artifact (such as a signs, text, speech, object, architecture, advertisement, website, television show, and so forth) to study through a variety of lenses ranging from neo-Aristotelian to ideological. Because this is a portfolio-based workshop, students will be required to either write a paper or respond to student writing every week.

SHAKESPEARE, Dr. Karen Gasser
In this writing course, geared to juniors and seniors across the disciplines, we have the luxury of focusing, for a semester, on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, cited as the greatest work by the greatest writer in the English language. A play of endless possibilities, Hamlet is uniquely suited for training in the critical thinking which informs every 3020 Topics in Writing course. As with each of the Topics courses, this one is designed to help you apply the basic modes of descriptive, analytical and argumentative discourse to writing designed for both a general audience and an expert academic audience. After reading, identifying, and responding in writing to issues this play raises, we will formulate thesis statements demanding clarification and/or defense. Beginning with a short, skills-building, in-depth analysis assignment, with one round of workshopping, we will move on to workshopping, in three rounds each, two five-page papers: an analysis paper exploring one of this novel’s issues and a paper in which you summarize and then refute, or improve, the argument of a scholar. You will choose from among four or five articles distributed to the class. Along the way, we will review points of grammar and stylistic clarity.

SLAVE NARRATIVES, Dr. Christine Macdonald
This course helps students improve critical thinking and writing skills by focusing on the rhetorical strategies employed by the writers of slave narratives. I will share my enthusiasm with you for the richness, variety, and complexity of these narratives, and will provide a sense of the historical context that helped to produce them. Since these narratives were written self-consciously, with an eye to how they would be perceived by readers, they are a natural vehicle through which to examine writing strategies as you fine-tune the writing strategies you employ in your own papers. While skills in interpreting narrative will be covered and practiced in class, students should already possess the ability to read for inferences.

SPIRITUALITY IN LITERATURE AND ART, Esther Quinlan
We will explore artistic expressions of spirituality in literature and visual art. (Visual art includes painting, sculpture, architecture, or photography.) The course is built on two assumptions: first, that spirituality is an integral and valid dimsension of humanity; and second, that all religious traditions offer access to transcendent truth. Readings and assignments are connected with the theme for The Spiritual Quest and with Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey. For some of the writing projects, the text is assigned; for others, students choose their subject, with instructor approval. Assignments range from personal response, to analysis and argument, and an individual inquiry research project.

TECHNOLOGY IN AMERICAN CULTURE, Dr. Peter Kratzke
This section of WRTG 3020 will trace the historical shift over the last two centuries in how Americans perceive technology. This shift has been nothing short of radical, and we will look to the social, political, theoretical, and literary dimensions at issue in America's transformation from a largely craft culture to our current Information Age. We will write a series of short exercises followed by three longer essays (4-6 pages). These longer essays will emphasize deductive reasoning, the sum moving us toward true argumentation. The first will center on categorical polemics, the second on causal analysis, and the third on thematic response. Regardless of specifics, the course’s overall purpose is that students leave the semester better able to articulate, distribute, and substantiate opinions.

THE DOCUMENTARY: RHETORICS OF WITNESSING AND REPRESENTING, Jennifer Armstrong
How do we become (reliable) witnesses of a social problem or phenomenon? And, as ethnographer John Van Maanen has asked, “How do we get from observations to representations?” These questions will serve as catalysts for an exploration of documentaries in various forms (film, photography, poetry, prose, collage, mixed media) and will lead us to generate our own theories of seeing and witnessing. Many of our academic texts will be collections of photographs accompanied by prose. These works record American experiences—particularly the lives and livelihoods of the rural poor—in 1930s America. We will discuss these works in class, devoting most of our time to the moving yet puzzling documentary, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a work whose very title challenges its readers. Inspired by these texts, we will keep semester-long, mixed-media journals that will accompany our own documentary projects (written essays, photographic essays, short films, etc.). We will also write two essays: an analysis of one of the course’s central questions and a persuasive paper. Because the course is underpinned by a commitment to community involvement, the semester will conclude with a public presentation of our work.

THE GROTESQUE, Dr. Nancy Hightower

"When you assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision appear by shock--to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures” (Flannery O’Connor). Authors and artists who incorporate the grotesque into their work use a culture’s construction of what is “normal” or “acceptable” and distort the image, allowing thereader to see the incongruities that marginalize people and ideas within that framework. In this course we will examine how authors such as Flannery O’Connor, Franz Kafka, and artists such as Mark Ryden, Laurie Lipton, and Jenny Saville use the grotesque in their writing and art in response to their ever-fracturing cultures. Students will examine the verbal and visual rhetoric authors and artists use in order to illuminate and criticize the distortions they see in their own society.

THEATRE AND DRAMA, Suzanne Hudson
This course teaches students to write analytical and argumentative papers on theatre and drama. Three papers are required. Oneanalyzes a particular play in terms of its message, symbolism, structure, etc. The second essay reviews a theatrical production. The third essay addresses issues that arise in a particular dramatic work. A textbook, written by the instructor, accompanies the course.

TRAGIC DRAMA, Dr. Joan Lord Hall

As well as including several shorter writing assignments, this class will require students to write analysis and argument papers based on classical and modern texts: Sophocles' Oedipus the King and Antigone, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, and Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie. The class will first read the texts closely and then discuss standard definitions of tragedy (from Aristotle on) to decide how helpful they are in interpreting this tragic drama. Student papers will also take into account and respond to modern critical commentary on these plays. The class will be conducted as a workshop (both as full class and smaller peer groups) as students work on rhetorical strategies for developing and supporting their insights and communicating them in writing to an audience of their peers.

Some of the issues students may want to explore through analysis and argument are: How does the concept of the tragic protagonist differ between ancient Greek society and twentieth century Western society? How are women presented in these plays? Does the catastrophe in each play result from character mistakes and failings, from external circumstances, or from a combination of the two? Is heroic tragedy a viable genre in the twentieth century, or do we regard Willy Loman (Death of a Salesman) as merely pathetic and the play an indictment of the American Dream? While no-one dies in The Glass Menagerie, can the play still be considered a tragedy of wasted lives?

TRAVEL WRITING, Catherine Lasswell

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things,” wrote travel memoirist Henry Miller. Is this why we leave home to venture into the unknown – to try to gain a new perspective? Sometimes we’re trying to escape our troubled inner landscapes as seen in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love and Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild. In this course, we will read travel literature that will take us through history and across cultures: writings by Bill Bryson, Joan Didion, Jon Krakauer, Elizabeth Gilbert, Paul Theroux, Isak Dinesen, and Lawrence Durrell. Through these readings, we will learn the art and craft of travel writing which will aid us in writing our own travel narratives. We will also explore the ethical issues that travelers face, particularly in eco-travel and excursions to ‘dark sites in the newly emerging field of thanatourism. You need not be an experienced traveler to take this course.

TROPES OF TRANSGRESSION: RHETORICS OF REPRESENTING THE "BAD GUY", Dr. Matthew Wilsey-Cleveland
Transgression involves the violation of a law, command, or moral code. To transgress is to go beyond a boundary or limit (whether explicit or tacit). With a focus upon developing faculties of analysis, criticism, and argument, this course will examine and inquire into in the ways in which transgressive action, identity and identification are borne out in a range of fictional and non-fictional media. Questions posed include:

Is the transgressive impulse innate or socially construed?
What rhetorics are deployed to compellingly ‘glorify’/fetishize or disparage/demonize transgressive action and/or identity?
What are the similarities and differences between representations of the criminal, the revolutionary, and the terrorist?
Can murder be judged beyond moral considerations?
Is evil necessarily transgressive?

Rhetorical issues and ethical debates surrounding such questions/topics as the above-posed will be engaged in relation to arange of established theoretical frameworks. Through journaling, essays, discussion, lectures, debates, and various other class activities, students will develop skills of critical reading and expression (written and oratory) in connection with the topics and themes of the course. More specifically, students will learn to write and think about transgression as it is featured in film, literature, science, philosophy, politics, music, and news media.

WHAT'S A WORLDVIEW?, Petger Schaberg
What's a Worldview? will allow us to inquire into the deep structure of worldview through a wide range of cultural media, including: film, newsprint, music, television culture, literature, the visual arts, psychology, advertising, political rhetoric, technology, economics and the environment. Students will be encouraged to ask fundamental questions about the power of worldview to shape events. How are worldviews constructed philosophically? Are there commonalities between seemingly opposing worldviews? What particular factors might limit the likelihood of meaningful dialogue? How are the values of particular worldviews disguised or otherwise camouflaged in contemporary media? Are there viable examples of pluralism as regards worldview? How does the ability to listen to opposing views influence worldview? How do we experience worldview in our own daily lives? What's a Worldview? will offer great flexibility in allowing us to examine worldview in its complex changing permutations- whether global or local.

WHO KILLED POETRY?, Don Eron
Since the invention of moveable type serious poets have been concerned with the challenges of making poetry vital for a largeraudience that seemingly cares little for it. The required texts for this course--two of the finest books available on contemporary poetry-- echo this concern in their titles. Can Poetry Matter? by Dana Gioia, and The Fate of American Poetry by Jonathan Holden, each seek to describe and analyze not only the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary poetry, but the directions some poets are now taking to invigorate the art, to engage the larger audience now inclined to turn elsewhere (for pleasure). We'll also read a packet of articles reflecting upon, among other issues, questions raised by Holden and Gioia. Some of these essays talk to each other and you may choose to join the conversation. The possibilities for practicing the skill of critical analysis on the subject of contemporary poetry are abundant, given enough effort and an open heart.

WOMEN WRITERS, Diane DeBella
Why are some creative women able to overcome adversity and triumph, personally and professionally, while others, equally talented, falter, stumble, lose their way and give up on their dreams? To answer this question, students will examine the lives and writings of creative women who have addressed the subject throughout history, including Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Katherine Mansfield, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Virginia Woolf, Maya Angelou, Amy Tan, Pam Houston, and others. Interestingly, students will discover that the women who thrived had as many or more obstacles thrown in their paths as the women who did not succeed, live up to their potentials, or achieve real happiness and contentment in life. Key areas addressed in this examination will include childhood experiences and relationships, love/sex relationships, career success, marriage, motherhood, depression and addiction.

WRITING ABOUT REAL AND VIRTUAL SOCIETY, Dr. Anne Bliss This intensive communicative workshop is conducted through computer-mediated writing in an on-campus lab. The course explores the history, developments and relevance of technology, arts, and the media, as well as the influence of electronic communication on society, both real and virtual. The course requires short written summaries, critiques, analyses and arguments analyzing the impacts on society of non-written communication, written text, and electronic communication through radio, telegraph, television and computer media. *This course also provides credit toward the Technology, Arts and Media (TAM) Certificate.

WRITING ABOUT THE BODY, Joshua Kupetz
Writing about the Body asks students to examine written representations of bodily difference in order to understand how authors use rhetoric about the body for persuasive, stylistic, and ideological purposes. While reading theoretical and creative works that problematize traditional representations of the body, the course disrupts what is often static, essentialist thinking about the human body in order to generate new ways of conceptualizing the body that are perhaps more inclusive and democratic. The course proceeds by introducing common body-image issues as starting points for the examination of representations of bodily difference and then introduces increasingly “extraordinary” representations. During this progression, students will be compose, workshop, and revise various types of writing that respond to questions raised by reading and discussion.

WRITING TO KNOW POETRY, Dr. Eric Burger
This course is an exploration of 20th century American poetry, with an emphasis on how students can come to know poems better through their own writing. You will write a variety of critical papers in this class: some traditional, some a bit unusual, some pretty far out. You will also produce imitations of the work of some assigned poets. We will workshop major assignments and we will read, among others, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop, Frank O’Hara, Robert Creeley, and James Tate. Throughout, we’ll consider the big question: What does it really mean to know a poem, anyway? It is my hope that in writing in a number of ways about poetry, you will develop a richer, more rewarding relationship with it.

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