Fall 2008 University Writing Seminars
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• See the Brandeis University Bulletin for undergraduate writing requirements
• Further information and frequently asked questions regarding the writing program, including composition, can be found here.
MWR 9-10
Adam Rutledge
How do we distinguish “good” art from “bad” art? Why do we consider some paintings to be masterpieces and others to be kitsch? Are there universal and timeless principles by which to judge a work of literature, or are these judgments always culturally determined? To explore these questions, this course will pair theoretical texts by authors such as Kant, Kierkegaard, and Eagleton with concrete examples of historical and contemporary works of art, including paintings by Raphael, poetry by W.B. Yeats, and contemporary artwork from Brandeis’s Rose Art Museum. Students will write three papers relating the theories of art they encounter in the course to artwork they discuss in class or discover on their own, using analytical and research techniques applicable to all disciplines.
UWS 2a: Histories of the Future
MWR 9-10
Kyle Wiggins
What can we learn from imagining the future? How does conjuring future worlds change our understanding of the present? What value do visions of tomorrow have once they come true or darken into failure? This course will ponder these questions while examining the layered histories of looking forward. We will probe how and why the urgent anxieties of various cultures become locked within dreams of the future. From the rubble of old and new prognostications we will excavate the philosophies (Enlightenment, Singularity), movements (millennialism, high modernism, speculative/fabulist/skeptical literature), and politics (techno-social progressivism, utopian, dystopian) of futurism. Texts will be selected from the collapsible tiers of popular culture, and include film, fiction, advertisements, music, philosophy, and (some) theory. While searching for missing flying cars and jet packs, students will hone analytic, writing, and research skills essential for success at the university.
UWS 3a: The New Woman in Literature, Media, and Society
MWR 9-10
Amy Easton-Flake
How do images of the suffragette, the flapper, Rosie the Riveter, or June Cleaver affect society today? This course will focus on representations of women in literature, media, and society during the first half of the Twentieth Century. We begin by looking at the “new woman” at the turn-of-the-century and women’s struggle for the vote, and we end by exploring the implications of these images for women and society. Using depictions of and arguments about the “new woman” found in canonical literature, film, political tracts, and advertisements, we will learn to look analytically at these texts to understand and break down each author’s argument. The essay assignments for this course are designed to teach you the skills necessary for your success at Brandeis. You will learn to engage critically with texts, organize and develop your thoughts, and integrate outside sources to better express your arguments. Peer reviews, individual conferences, class discussion, and revisions will help you refine the style, grammatical form, organization, and overall quality of your analytical writing.
UWS 4a: Style and Content: The Art of the Essay
MWR 9-10
Dominic Green
What makes good writing good, and great writing great? Does style (how you say it) affect content (what you say)? Students have to write endless essays. This course teaches the secrets of fast, successful writing. Its reading list contains no complex theoretical literature, only short essays by great writers: Montaigne, Orwell, Didion, Swift, Steiner, Ozick, Tolstoy. We’ll read them closely, work out the tricks and techniques that make good writing great, and then incorporate our findings into your writing. Many of these essays will pop up elsewhere on your reading lists too, so reading them now will save time later. But studying them as a writer will help your writing and speaking at Brandeis and beyond, because successful people are articulate people. You'll write three essays: a short analysis of an essayist’s technique; a short comparative reading between two essays; and then your own essay, on any topic of your choice.
UWS 5a: Scenes of American Travel
MWR 9-10
Nick Van Kley
For at least 150 years, Americans have been imagining themselves and their nation by leaving home. Confronting unfamiliar terrain has proven, paradoxically, a productive way to explore American identity and culture. Travel, it seems, has been more than mere leisure. Beginning with Mark Twain and finishing with Sarah Vowell, this course will examine some of the conventions of American travel writing. What motivates the project of travel? What is the relationship between the traveler and the interrogated culture? How does the traveler use cultural difference to construct an account of her or himself? These are a few of the questions we will explore as we consider the relationship between nation, self, and the other in this genre. Students will be encouraged to develop a critical attitude toward this popular form of expression by developing skills for cogent textual analysis and argumentation. Ultimately, this course will help students cultivate the necessary faculties for writing successful academic essays, faculties which will serve the students throughout their careers at Brandeis.
UWS 6a: Music and Noise
MWR 9-10
Jeremy Spindler
What is music? To some it is Bach, Ellington, or the Beatles, while to others it may be the raw and simple sounds of nature. There are some people who consider music to be everything from silence, to the sounds of a construction site, to the squeaking of a rubber duck. Yet still to others, music can only exist within certain constraints or places such as a concert hall or through a stereo. During the twentieth-century, several artists such as John Cage, Milton Babbitt, and Sonic Youth have caused people to think deeper about what music really is, spawning a deeper meaning for the phrase "one person's music is another person's noise". These artists, among others have caused a heated debate between musicians and non-musicians, both inside and outside of academia, about what can and cannot be considered music.
Through critical reading, writing, and peer-review, we will take a look at artists whose work is considered "music" by some but "noise" by most and search for what might have led them to their 'unusual' aesthetics. The goal of this course will be to elevate your personal writing skills, learn to develop an argument, and become a more effective communicator with the written word. No prior study of music is required.
UWS 7a: Authority and Authenticity in Ethnography, Journalism, and Documentary
T, R 3-4
Laura John
Anthropologists routinely struggle to represent their subjects objectively. Many acknowledge this as an unattainable goal, yet ethnography (defined as both the methodology of anthropological research and its product) remains a key way anthropologists describe and analyze their subjects while the documentary (which could be considered a kind of pop ethnography) maintains an aura of authenticity.
In order to delve deeper into the ever-present but often overlooked themes of authority, objectivity, and authorship in ethnography and documentary, this course will foster the development of incisive analysis and sophisticated academic writing. Structured assignments, class discussions, peer group workshops, and conferences will direct us as we explore different writing tasks and consider an array of ethnographic texts - some traditional, some not – and documentary styles. Readings include Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild and Werner Herzog’s film Grizzly Man as well as selections from more classic ethnographies.
UWS 8a: Music in a World of Words: Popular Music and its Criticism Since 1967
T, R 3-4
Christian Gentry
Did you ever read a review about your favorite band or artist and think the critic got it all wrong? How would it be to examine music in a way where you could come up with your own compelling criticism? This course will examine popular music criticism since the birth of Rolling Stone Magazine to the current age of blogs and webzines (Pitchfork Media, Dusted, Impose Magazine, etc.). This class isn’t just about popular music; it is about how popular music is criticized, what is used for criticism, and why certain styles of criticism are more or less effective than others.
Some possible questions that will be thought over in this class are: In what ways has popular music criticism provided thorough and understandable analyses of the music in question? In what ways has such criticism failed? How does academic writing address popular music? What biases exist in these critical media and how do they affect audience reception? By examining these questions through several writing assignments and essays, including a research paper, the student will walk away from the class with an overall confidence in writing and a specific aptitude for thinking, analyzing and formalizing his or her own criticism about popular music. In addition to academic journals and periodicals/webzines, the following texts may be included: Liptstick Traces by Greil Marcus, Babylon is Burning by Clinton Heylin, Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azzerad, and Confusion is Next: The Sonic Youth Story by Alec Foege.
UWS 9a: Latin-American Music and the Construction of Identity
T, R 3-4
Robert Pearson
Music plays a central role in the construction of Latin-American identity on many levels. At the local level, music unites and directs groups toward a common goal, be it social, political, or religious. On the national level, musical styles help to define the identities of certain Latin-American nations: Mexico's mariachi, Argentina's tango, Brazil's samba, for example. On the broadest level, music helps to define what the world perceives as Latin-America, and how Latin-Americans perceive themselves.
This course will examine a variety of Latin-American music, always with the intention of uncovering how this music constructs the identities of those who produce it, consume it, and claim it as their own. How do Shakira's music videos portray Latin crossover pop? How does the concept of machismo figure into Latin music? Through readings, listening, discussion and three essays, you will engage with these and other similar questions. You will learn to think and write analytically and creatively about music and identity, and will develop writing skills that will prepare you for a successful future as a writer at Brandeis. This class does not require any prior knowledge of music or foreign languages.
UWS 10a: Popular Music and Identity
T, R 3-4
Joseph Morgan
We’ve all been asked the old question: “Imagine yourself a castaway on a deserted island and you can only bring one artist’s music; what do you bring?” Whether you answer Brahms, The Beatles, or Biggie Smalls, your response is an expression of your identity, a statement that is more about you than it is about the artist you choose. Through lectures and three writing projects, this course will explore the ways in which popular music expresses the identity of both audience and performer. In the first project, you will conduct a close reading of a song’s lyrical and musical content in order to reveal an artist’s construction of his/her own identity. In the second project, you will view an artist’s audience through the lens of a particular framework of identity in order to ascertain the relationship between that artist’s intention and his/her audience’s reception. Finally, drawing on the ideas learned during the first two projects, the final project will consider the role of genre in the relationship between artist and audience. All writing will be subject to revision, and the final projects will be presented in a professional manner to the class at the end of the term.
UWS 11a: Staging Madness
T, R 3-4
Cory Nelson
Why are playwrights so fascinated with scenes of madness and with different forms of extreme psychic experience? What is the inherent theatricality of madness, as well as the madness of theatricality? From Medea to Hamlet to Blanche Dubois, the madman and madwoman have been recurrent dramatic archetypes, figures that both critique social conventions and complicate the notion of a stable, unified self. In this writing seminar, we will examine theatrical representations of insanity, focusing on major works by modern dramatists. The texts we examine will include Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, Peter Shaffer's Equus, and David Auburn's Proof or Tony Kushner'sAngels in America. We will discuss the manner in which madness is linked to creativity, sexuality, and the desire for transcendence. Guiding our exploration will be excerpts from critical theory. We will also write about everything that we read, developing three polished essays as we work through the elements of academic writing. By the end of the semester, each student will have produced a close reading essay, a "lens" essay - which uses one text to interpret another - and a research paper.
UWS 12a: Transgressing Categories: Gendery, Sexuality and the Body
T, R 3-4
Alison Better
One way we understand the world is through the creation and maintenance of identity categories. These categories aid in our reading of the worlds we inhabit and the people we encounter. In this course, we will examine ways in which categories of gender and sexuality have been created, maintained and challenged in society. We will attempt to understand moments where the boundaries between male and female and homosexual and heterosexual have the potential to become blurred or flexible. Using examples from popular culture to begin our analyses, we will use writing to further our understanding of the structure and utility of gender and sexuality categories in today’s society.
The course is organized in three major units which will serve as a basis for learning the tools to succeed at college writing. By applying theoretical texts from Butler, Halberstam, hooks, and Fausto-Sterling to cases from popular culture we will examine meanings of gender and sexuality categories through a variety of writing assignments. Small class size and student conferences will allow for multiple forms of communication and dialogue to flourish. This course provides students the opportunity to grow--both as a scholar and a writer.
UWS 13a: Transgressing Categories: Gendery, Sexuality and the Body
T, R 4-5
Alison Better
One way we understand the world is through the creation and maintenance of identity categories. These categories aid in our reading of the worlds we inhabit and the people we encounter. In this course, we will examine ways in which categories of gender and sexuality have been created, maintained and challenged in society. We will attempt to understand moments where the boundaries between male and female and homosexual and heterosexual have the potential to become blurred or flexible. Using examples from popular culture to begin our analyses, we will use writing to further our understanding of the structure and utility of gender and sexuality categories in today’s society.
The course is organized in three major units which will serve as a basis for learning the tools to succeed at college writing. By applying theoretical texts from Butler, Halberstam, hooks, and Fausto-Sterling to cases from popular culture we will examine meanings of gender and sexuality categories through a variety of writing assignments. Small class size and student conferences will allow for multiple forms of communication and dialogue to flourish. This course provides students the opportunity to grow--both as a scholar and a writer.
UWS 14a: Writing the Rhythm: Caribbean Music and Contemporary Writing
T, R 4-5
Njelle Hamilton
“a new way/ of understanding sound”
— Kwame Dawes, “Some Tentative Definitions III”
Caribbean musicians have perfected the art of storytelling in the popular music forms of reggae, salsa and calypso. Today, however, the magic of Marley, the Mighty Sparrow and Celia Cruz is no longer limited to the sound system, but echoes from the pages of Caribbean novels, stories and poems.
In this course we will develop the analytical and argumentative skills of sophisticated academic writing as we read contemporary Caribbean writers’ attempt to “ride/write the rhythm” of the Caribbean. We will examine the lyrics and rhythms of reggae, calypso and salsa alongside their literary counterparts, including Kwame Dawes, Sam Selvon and Victor Hernandez Cruz; we will probe the intersection between oral and literary storytelling and interrogate the ability of the written word to capture and describe music and sound.
Our process will include listening assignments, class discussions, peer group workshops, conferences and sequenced papers ranging from a close-reading of a reggae poem to writing a research paper on the cultural context of Nuyorican salsa. The process of writing about these intertwined forms and continued self-evaluation will enable you to develop the foundational skills of academic writing that will stand you in good stead throughout college and beyond.
UWS 15a: Minimalist Music
T, R 4-5
Peter Lane
The Minimalist movement has arguably been the most prevalent and controversial style of experimental music and art in the last century. Why has this rebellious trend become so influential? How has Minimalism been the creative conduit for many politically driven composers? Through the analysis of Minimalist concert music, film music, and opera, as well as various texts on musical aesthetics, we will discover how this artistic philosophy has formed the identity of an entire generation of American musicians and artists. Through continual writing, revision, group discussion, and student conferences, we will gain a better understanding of how the arts define culture, and develop the writing skills crucial for your academic and professional success.
This course is organized into three units with the main purpose of developing academic writing skills. Subject matter for writing assignments will discuss the music and artistic statements of composers such as John Adams, Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, David Lang, Terry Riley, as well as other musicians, bands, artists, architects, and writers who have been influenced by the Minimalist movement. Prior formal knowledge of music is not a requirement for this course.
UWS 16a: Authority and Authenticity in Ethnography, Journalism, and Documentary
T, R 4-5
Laura John
Anthropologists routinely struggle to represent their subjects objectively. Many acknowledge this as an unattainable goal, yet ethnography (defined as both the methodology of anthropological research and its product) remains a key way anthropologists describe and analyze their subjects while the documentary (which could be considered a kind of pop ethnography) maintains an aura of authenticity.
In order to delve deeper into the ever-present but often overlooked themes of authority, objectivity, and authorship in ethnography and documentary, this course will foster the development of incisive analysis and sophisticated academic writing. Structured assignments, class discussions, peer group workshops, and conferences will direct us as we explore different writing tasks and consider an array of ethnographic texts - some traditional, some not – and documentary styles. Readings include Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild and Werner Herzog’s film Grizzly Man as well as selections from more classic ethnographies.
UWS 17a: Desiring Fiction
T, R 4-5
Bendta Schroeder
We all know the story: girl meets boy, troubles interfere, troubles are overcome, girl gets boy. But whether it's canonical texts like Pride and Prejudice or the latest popular "chick flick," we come back to the same story again and again. The question is, if we all know how it's going to end, why do we keep reading and rereading (or watching and rewatching) these narratives? In this course, we will engage with eighteenth to twenty-first century texts of different genres including Eliza Haywood's short story Fantomina, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and at least one example of contemporary film or television, in order to investigate how readers participate in--and resist--forms of desire constructed by narrative structure and historical and social contexts. The aim of this course is to learn how to translate personal investments, such as the pleasures of reading, into rigorous academic questions. We will supplement our fictional texts with a range of historical and theoretical readings and experimentation with a variety of writing activities and assignments, including close reading, lens, and research-based essays. Our goal will be to produce about twenty-five pages of polished writing, in which we expand and develop the analytical and technical skills essential for strong academic writing.
UWS 18a: Popular Music and Identity
T, R 4-5
Joseph Morgan
We’ve all been asked the old question: “Imagine yourself a castaway on a deserted island and you can only bring one artist’s music; what do you bring?” Whether you answer Brahms, The Beatles, or Biggie Smalls, your response is an expression of your identity, a statement that is more about you than it is about the artist you choose. Through lectures and three writing projects, this course will explore the ways in which popular music expresses the identity of both audience and performer. In the first project, you will conduct a close reading of a song’s lyrical and musical content in order to reveal an artist’s construction of his/her own identity. In the second project, you will view an artist’s audience through the lens of a particular framework of identity in order to ascertain the relationship between that artist’s intention and his/her audience’s reception. Finally, drawing on the ideas learned during the first two projects, the final project will consider the role of genre in the relationship between artist and audience. All writing will be subject to revision, and the final projects will be presented in a professional manner to the class at the end of the term.
UWS 19a: The Wonder Years: American Children in the 20th Century
MWR 1-2
Megan Hamilton
During the tumult that preceded the American Revolution, the thirteen colonies were apt to describe themselves collectively as a child throwing off overbearing “mother” England. It’s no surprise then that children have continued to figure prominently in American mythology, especially as figures of hope, innocence and possibility. In this course, we will think about portrayals of children in the latter half of the twentieth century and ask ourselves whether the voices of those children—whether in fiction, comics, or an episode of a TV series—support or subvert those stereotypical portrayals. Is childhood innocence possible any longer, or are children just small adults in overly cute clothing? Has the seemingly limitless possibility for imagination and exploration in novels of the 19th century fallen victim to the manicured grass of suburban backyards and parental paranoia? Are today’s children really just “Organization Kids,” on a path for success beginning with Baby Einstein? What kind of childhood do we idealize, and how does that compare to the lives children live now?
We will be looking at a variety of sources likely to include Jonathan Safar Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, essays by David Sedaris, short stories by Sandra Cisernos, ZZ Packer and Richard Yates, Charles Shultz’s comic strip “Peanuts,” and, indeed, an episode of The Wonder Years. We will think about the practices involved in close and reflective reading and write a series of papers designed to encourage the articulation of individual arguments and analysis, culminating with a final research paper in which you can further explore your own questions about contemporary childhood.
UWS 20a: Spaces of Conflict
MWR 1-2
Nathanael Robinson
As technology seems to close the gap between peoples, land, place, and environment have become essential to struggles over identity and ideology. Whether in the heart of Africa or on the US borders, space has become an implacable dimension of what divides us and what’s worth fighting for. Using novels, memoirs, photographs, and theory, this course will explore how notions of place and environment are constructed and politicized. New Mexico and Cologne will serve as case studies for understanding spaces of ethnicity, nationalism and war. Through a variety of assignments, students will develop their writing skills while becoming familiar with analytical and theoretical techniques. For the final project, students will write a research paper that will explore one of the many “environmental crises” that haunt places like the African Great Lakes, suburban Paris, and New Orleans.
UWS 21a: Fantasy and Literature
MWR 1-2
Rachel Kapelle
Formulaic, predictable, escapist: all charges leveled against contemporary fantasy literature. These charges have led to the genre’s marginalization by the academy and by critics in general. In recent years, however, fantasy has received more attention from academics and is increasingly prominent in American pop culture as well, thanks to Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. In this course we will consider elements of the genre and investigate works which alter typical formulas. Finally, we will look at films which challenged the stereotype fantasy movie = bad acting, bad script, and corny special effects.
Our conversations will serve as raw material for the main focus of this UWS: writing in a college environment. Most courses at Brandeis require writing in some form. This seminar prepares you for your future classes by discussing standards of academic writing, the formulation of effective arguments, and methods of research. You will complete a sequence of assignments which includes three kinds of papers you will encounter throughout your college career. Knowing how to present complex positions and use resources to support them are key abilities no matter which major a student chooses; this seminar helps you to develop these skills.
UWS 22a: Grotesque Bodies
MWR 1-2
Tina Van Kley
Henry David Thoreau declared, “I stand in awe of my body,” expressing a sense of the body as a source of delight, wonder, and even artistic inspiration. Conversely, the body can also be a source of embarrassment, dismay, and disgust. Both the pleasure and the disgust the body can evoke are brought together in the concept of the “grotesque body,” which will be the theme of this writing seminar. Mikhail Bakhtin claimed that exaggeration, hyperbolism, and excessiveness are “fundamental attributes of the grotesque style,” and that, as a mode of representation, the grotesque comments on and critiques social realities. In this class we will read, discuss, and write about the “grotesque body” as it is represented across a variety of cultural texts, including poetry, short stories, and television, in order to ask what critical functions those representations serve. What can the spectacle of a “grotesque body” convey that an ordinary one can’t? For what reasons and on what occasions is the grotesque appropriate? Is the grotesque ever “appropriate”? We will consider the function of the “grotesque body” with respect to issues of gender, race, and class, drawing examples from the past, as well as frowm our own historical moment, as we work together to write three major essays, each developing skills that will be crucial throughout your college careers.
UWS 23a: Spaces of Conflict
MWR 12-1
Nathanael Robinson
As technology seems to close the gap between peoples, land, place, and environment have become essential to struggles over identity and ideology. Whether in the heart of Africa or on the US borders, space has become an implacable dimension of what divides us and what’s worth fighting for. Using novels, memoirs, photographs, and theory, this course will explore how notions of place and environment are constructed and politicized. New Mexico and Cologne will serve as case studies for understanding spaces of ethnicity, nationalism and war. Through a variety of assignments, students will develop their writing skills while becoming familiar with analytical and theoretical techniques. For the final project, students will write a research paper that will explore one of the many “environmental crises” that haunt places like the African Great Lakes, suburban Paris, and New Orleans.
UWS 24a: What is Tragedy?
MWR 12-1
Martin Moraw
In our culture, we frequently use the term “tragic” in everyday language, either to describe immediate personal experiences or historical and political events, or to define a body of literary texts. At the same time, however, it is extremely difficult for us to explain precisely what we mean by the term “tragedy.” In this University Writing Seminar, we will trace the long history of this uncertainty. Perhaps to a greater extent than any other literary form, tragedy has provoked vastly different or even utterly incompatible responses to questions about its aesthetic value, philosophical meaning, and political and ideological implications.
We will read tragedies from different historical periods and cultures (authors will include Sophocles and Shakespeare, as well as an example from contemporary film or television) and we will consider a wide range of theoretical approaches to the tragic form (ranging from Aristotle to Hegel, Nietzsche and other modern thinkers). In addition to that, we will interrogate the ways in which current news reports frame disastrous events as “tragedies.” The aim of this seminar is to arrive at a better understanding of the reasons for the enormous cultural influence and surprising longevity of this aesthetic form. Over the course of the semester, students will complete a sequence of assignments and exercises designed to help them acquire the skills needed to navigate the challenges of academic writing successfully.
UWS 25a: The Monster and Me
MWR 12-1
Lisa Rourke
Whether it’s Frankenstein’s Monster, Dr. Jekyll’s counterpart, Mr. Hyde, or Philip Pullman’s villainous Mrs. Coulter, we are often both fascinated and repelled by monstrous beings, leading us to wonder how different we really are from such dysfunctional creatures. Does each of us, in fact, harbor a subconscious monster? Do we have agency over our actions and ourselves? Focusing on monstrous figures depicted in literature, we will consider the various ways we construct and deconstruct identity. To frame our thinking we will actively participate in the "nature versus nurture" debate by engaging with critical thinkers from the fields of philosophy and psychology.
This course will also foster the development of incisive analysis and sophisticated academic writing as a way to explore questions of identity and its constitution. Structured assignments, class discussions, peer group workshops, and conferences will direct us as we explore different writing tasks and consider an array of texts including Frankenstein,Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and The Golden Compass. We will experiment with a variety of writing activities and assignments including close reading, lens, and a research-based essay. In addition, we will supplement our fictional texts with a range of theoretical readings by thinkers including John Locke, B.F. Skinner and Sigmund Freud. Our goal will be to produce about twenty-five pages of strong academic writing in which we expand and develop our analytical and technical skills.