University Writing Program

Crime narratives have served a variety of purposes throughout American History. During the Colonial and Early Republican period, published execution confessions and sermons communicated the perils of criminal activity. Sensationalized accounts of cases such as the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby in 1932 and the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, “The Black Daliah,” helped sell millions of newspapers. Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood transformed true crime into a literary art form. Today, fans of true crime can find entire television networks and podcasts devoted to the subject. True crime is entertainment—but what does that tell us about American culture? How does the genre shape our view of the justice system and the nature of crime itself? Is there anything “true” about True Crime? Students will engage with and write about primary sources which span the Colonial period to the present in an effort to contextualize the phenomenon of crime as entertainment. 

Sarah Beth Gable

Instruction offered remotely.

Among animals, individuals choose mates based on biologically informative features such as long colorful tail feathers, large canines, or a red, swollen posterior. We typically assume that human attraction (and love) is much more nuanced and complex ... but is it? Many features that humans find beautiful or attractive, such as small waists, curvy hips, and large eyes, can be tied to biological explanations. Even behavioral features, such as nurturing behaviors, may be attractive for adaptive reasons. In this course, we will explore and write about biological explanations for these and many other aspects of human attraction. Using an evolutionary perspective, we will examine global patterns of attraction and challenge stereotypes of beauty. Do nice guys really finish last? Do traditionally attractive features in western cultures—such as low body weight—actually provide an evolutionary benefit, or might some preferences be culturally derived? For the final essay, students will supplement library research with data collection to produce an interdisciplinary research paper.

Elissa Jacobs

Instruction offered remotely.

The development of social media, now so important in our lives, has caused huge changes in popular culture. It is now more democratic, more diverse, more open, and more political than ever before. Still, some of the same old problems persist. As noted intellectual Mary Beard argues, “there are countless examples of attempts to write women entirely out of public discourse.” Another prominent woman, lyricist, artist, businesswoman, and philanthropist Taylor Swift calls out this issue in simpler terms: “when everyone believes ya, what’s that like?” Beard and Swift both raise the same central question: who is allowed to speak in public, and who is believed? Furthermore, why do we see figures in popular culture as more or less credible than one another? What kind of identities (race, gender, or class) and social messages are involved in this process of divining the truth from multiple people’s perspectives? These are the questions at the heart of this course, which will focus on modern figures of popular culture—celebrities, politicians, activists, and fictional characters—to help us understand the complex relationship between truth and power. 

Bridget Kelleher

Instruction offered remotely. 

The Hippocratic Oath is a guiding principle amongst doctors: “First, do no harm.” But what if your patient is a potential mass murderer? Does the doctor’s obligation lie first with the patient or with society at large? We will explore these questions and others across a variety of genres, including the acclaimed medical mystery television series House and other forms of social media such as Ted talks and Instagram posts. In addition, students will have the opportunity to research a case study on a topic of their choice ranging from designer babies to anti-vaxers. This course will foster the development of incisive analysis and sophisticated academic writing as well as an understanding of disciplinary differences through the exploration of bioethical dilemmas.

Lisa Rourke

Instruction offered in person.

Sugar and sweeteners have played a large role in influencing human societies. From its earliest origins as an exotic substance to its commodification and democratization at the hands of capitalism, sugar has shaped empires, fueled systems of slavery, and revolutionized the human diet. Even today, this commodity continues to shape our cultures, our vocabularies, our diets, our health, and our environment in surprisingly pervasive ways. Why and how has this seemingly ordinary substance had such an impact upon our lives, and how can we constructively manage and responsibly enjoy it in the global future? In this course, we will examine its nature and the complex history of human interactions with this sweet commodity through film, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, poetry, novels, blogs, and art. We will also engage with current debates over how to manage its public health and environmental impacts and how to remedy the injustices that still accompany its production. 

Robert B. Cochran

Instruction offered in person.

From Alex Haley’s Roots to Doctor Who’s time-travel adventures, this course invites students to engage with novels, short stories, films, and television series that tell historical “truths” through fiction. We will engage with stories of triumph and loss, oppression and resistance, and war and peace that bring history to life. Together we will grapple with many themes in world history with a particular focus on women, class and race in social struggles for freedom, in national movements for self-determination and in war and conflict. For their final project, students will have the opportunity to research a story of historical fiction of their choosing. 

Alaa Murad

Instruction offered remotely. 

The Eurovision Song Contest is the longest-running competition in the world. Starting in 1956, it has been an opportunity for countries to showcase their talent by often playing on cultural traits and stereotypes. National identity plays a key factor in performances and can spark controversy, unity, or both. How can Eurovision help us understand the evolving role and significance of national identity? What is national identity and how is it used? What shapes, extends, and limits identity and how does this intersect with the nation? In this course we will look at some theories about nations and national identity, examine the performative aspects of identity, and, of course, enjoy some performances from the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest. For the final paper, students will explore and research a piece representative of a national identity, such as Disney’s Frozen or Hamilton the musical.

Susann Longva Vaeth

Instruction offered remotely.

In 2018, the nation’s first ever Federal Domestic Workers Bill of Rights was proposed. If successful, this legislation will be the culmination of years of lobbying to address the forces of classism, racism, and sexism that have contributed to the subjugation and devaluing of domestic workers and the labor they perform, including but not limited to: housekeeping, cooking, and childcare. Students will examine and develop arguments about the social, cultural, and economic conditions and systems that underpin the pervasive exploitation of domestic labor in the U.S. and abroad. By thinking about how domestic labor is imagined in literature, television, and film, students will unpack paradigms of privilege and power, and carefully consider the intersections of class, gender, and race.

Courtney Pina Miller

Reserved for international students for the first five days of registration; then open to all students. Instruction is offered remotely.

Sex Sells! It’s the immortal truism of the advertising industry. But how does sex sell? For decades, advertisers have used hot bods and innuendo to suggest that power and pleasure can be bought. In the 1970s, the battle cry, “You’ve come a long way, Baby!” pushed cigarettes as the hip accessories of feminism and the sexual revolution. Today, brands blend consumerism with gender activism, invite LGBTQ to the mainstream marketplace, and tempt millennials with new promises of sex and success. In this course, students find and write about advertising that delights, infuriates, and perplexes them. In the first essay, they dissect their choice of pornographic food commercials, Budweiser bromances, and Calvin Klein billboards that titillate consumers and reshape social constructs of masculinity and femininity. The research paper challenges students to locate and comprehend recent studies of sex and gender in advertising and apply them to a defined set of ads or a major campaign of their choice. 

Doug Kirshen

Instruction offered in-person.

In 2009, a woman was found murdered in rural Louisiana. There were no witnesses, but seeming evidence led police to suspect undocumented immigrants. The victim’s DNA, however, did not match any of the Mexican suspects. Years later a new forensic technology generated a portrait of the killer – a blonde male of Northern European ancestry, and an arrest was made. Forensic science has not only helped to identify the dead, to solve crimes, and to bring culprits to justice. Forensic techniques, accepted at the time but later discredited, have also led to false convictions, as in the case of a man found guilty of rape who spent decades in prison before DNA tests confirmed his innocence, or in the case of an arsonist who was exonerated by the State of Texas in 2011 but had been executed years earlier. This course invites students to explore the achievements and shortcomings of forensic science. We will investigate the work of forensic anthropologists, take a look at real-life cases to learn about the history and effectiveness of investigative techniques, and analyze how forensic science has been portrayed (and transformed) in popular television series such as Bones, CSI, or Crossing Jordan. 

Katrin Fischer

Instruction offered remotely

A thick accent, bunch of grammar errors, jumble of different languages, and so on: it feels embarrassing to speak “bad” English. We casually hear or say, “you speak very good English!” Is it a compliment or insult? What do we assume as “bad” and what counts as “good”? In this seminar, we will look into how different forms of English are represented and consumed in literature, film, video, and visual art, starting with the film Lost in Translation. Students are welcomed to bring in and share their own experiences on issues including “foreignness,” migration, language learning, and translation, to name but few. By focusing on how multiple Englishes meet and clash in fictional and real environments, we will try to rethink the hierarchies of language and culture. Our ultimate goal is to reflect on how this conversation could influence both our class environment and daily lives. 

Nai Kim

Instruction offered remotely.

Our focus will be on black voices in twentieth century American culture, ranging from the essays of W. E. B. DuBois to contemporary film. We will discuss a range of literary and historical movements such as the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Arts Movement, and black feminism. We will explore questions of identity, sociology, history, culture, and aesthetics. This course will encourage us to think about questions including: How does a minority voice make itself heard by an often indifferent cultural majority? How does one politically persuade an often hostile audience? How is one’s personal history and sense of identity influenced by historical, political, and cultural circumstances? What happens at the intersections of gender and race? In this class we will grow as readers and writers as we listen to the voices that have already discussed these issues, and as we craft our own responses to these questions. 

Ryan Hitchcock

Instruction offered remotely.

Introduces students to the power of writing as a means of communication and a process of thinking and understanding. As students complete a series of writing assignments, they will engage in a process of reading, drafting, reviewing and revising, working in peer groups and individually with their instructors. Why are we fascinated and intrigued by outer space? What moved the United States to engage in the “space race” in the 1960s, and why is Elon Musk now intent on colonizing mars? To begin our exploration of the universe we will study Carl Sagan’s 1977 PBS series Cosmos. Sagan famously observes, “we are made of star stuff,” because the material produced by stellar explosions many years ago is the same material out of which we are made. The final research project gives students the opportunity to choose from a variety of films, documentaries, and stories such as Star Wars, The Martian, and Battlestar Galactica to make their own argument about what our interest in the stars reveals about who we are as a people. 

Yi He

Instruction offered remotely.

Joey and Chandler, Woody and Buzz, Thelma and Louise, Hermoine and Harry: over the years, television and movies have provided numerous definitions of “friendship” through various depictions of “besties” and “bosom-buddies.” These definitions naturally reflect the changing societal values and cultural norms from which they emerge. The same can be said for depictions about friendship from the ancient world. The relationships between Ruth and Naomi, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, David and Jonathan, or Achilles and Patroclus can provide rich insight into the boundaries of friendship that still hold true today. In this course, we will consider numerous depictions of friendship and consider what assumptions they convey in their time and place. Through reading a novel or short story from popular culture or the ancient world, watching a television episode of Friends or Black Mirror, or critically examining a movie like Toy Story or Clueless, we will seek answers to questions like: What are the benefits of friendship? What role does gender play in friendship? What do friendship-depictions tell us about how audiences view and participate in friendship? Our understanding will be facilitated through modern studies of friendship from psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Through engagement with primary source material in combination with class discussions, we will learn analytic and writing skills that will enable us to think critically about what it means to be a friend. 

Carey Slaeker

Instruction offered in a hybrid combination of in person and remote sessions.

What is Boston? Boston is best known for baked beans, Fenway Park, The Boston Marathon, and over 50 colleges and universities that attract nearly 200,000 students in the Greater Metropolitan area. In the 1700’s, Boston was called the “Athens of America” because of its literate and engaged citizenry, wisdom, knowledge and education. Boston is a city of FIRSTS: the first public park, Boston Common, in 1634; the first public school, Boston Latin, in 1635; the first street-car subway system in the nation in 1897. In 2017, Boston ranked fifth in the world for innovations including cultural assets, education centers, transportation, and biking/walking accessibility. From the Esplanade on the Charles River, the Back Bay, Fens and Boston Common to the newer 15-acre Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, the beauty of Boston is unsurpassed. In this section of UWS, we will be using material on the City of Boston and its neighborhoods, with readings that focus on the historical, sociological, literary and contemporary beat of the city. The main goal for UWS is to further develop your academic research and writing skills , and this course will utilize the City of Boston as a textbook, enabling you to “experience” Boston, close to where you have chosen to spend your college years.

Marsha Nourse

Instruction offered in person.

Humans often consider themselves to be "the moral animal," distinguished from other animals by our complex and socially derived systems of morality, characterized by empathy and cooperation. However, when comparing humans with the rest of the animal world, are we really so different? In this course, we will examine through discussion and writing the degree to which human morality is grounded in our evolutionary past. We will explore the development of human morality during childhood and adulthood through the lens of evolution and will look at classic scientific tests of morality/ethics (e.g., the trolley problem). Additionally, we will engage with evidence for morality in non-human species and probe the degree to which our primate relatives engage in altruistic, empathetic, and moral behaviors. During the final paper, students will have the freedom to choose their own topic and to utilize interdisciplinary literature in their exploration of the nature and nurture of morality. Usually offered every year.

Elissa Jacobs

Reserved for international students for the first five days of registration; then open to all students. Instruction is offered remotely.

Storytelling plays a crucial role in our lives. We draw on stories to make meaning of ourselves and others, to shed light on our experiences, and to express who we are or would like to be. The same holds true for businesses. Storytelling is not only a core competency of business leaders but an indispensable component of functional organizations. Successful companies take pride in compelling stories; troubled companies tend to lack institutional stories and a culture of storytelling. Capable business leaders are effective storytellers, and strategic storytelling has been a proven means of initiating change and of turning companies around. This course invites students to investigate the power of stories and storytelling in business contexts. By analyzing texts from various media, we will discuss questions such as: What characterizes effective stories? What is the importance of storytelling and story-making in companies? How can storytelling bring about organizational change? Which traits do storytellers and business leaders share? What is the connection between storytelling and leadership? 

Katrin Fischer

Instruction offered remotely. 

How do we define our relationship with animals: which we keep as livestock, which we keep as pets, and which we keep in zoos? Human-animal interactions have developed over hundreds of thousands of years; in that time, animals have had a significant impact on human behavior and on the development of human societies. In this class, we will explore the deep history of the relationship between humans and animals. We will consider how different cultures and subsistence strategies cultivate different interspecies dynamics, and particularly how domestication changes the way we perceive animals and their place in the world. To explore these questions, we will use multiple lines of evidence, including ethnographic data, material culture, and scientific analyses of faunal remains. Students will have the opportunity to research and write about the relationship between humans and animals in a wide variety of ancient and modern cultures. 

Catherine Scott

Instruction offered in person.

What is love? How does society encourage or discourage it? Who gets to fall in love and why? For many years, the study of love seemed to belong to poets, painters, singers, and playwrights. Scholars in different fields like history and anthropology avoided studying love, claiming that it was too special—too personal, maybe too sacred—to be a topic of reflection and analysis. Yet love is all around us. What does it mean and do? This course explores films, case studies, and more to explore how love conforms to and challenges the prevailing social order and becomes a force for change or continuity. We will analyze readings about how people living in Africa, the USA, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East have described and experienced love as a vital emotion within or despite the expectations they face. Students will research a love-related issue of their choice and may choose from texts including written narratives, ethnographies, legal studies, films, works of art, novels, and other mediums.

Martha Lagace

Instruction offered in person.

Yes and no. On the one hand, each writing seminar has the same types of assignments and course policies. On the other hand, each seminar uses a different topic. For details, see fall 2019 and spring 2020 courses on the registrar's website. For descriptions, click the course numbers on the far left of those pages.

Both options are viable, but students who take UWS in the fall can then apply what they’ve learned to their spring courses. Consult academic advising if you have further questions.

UWS is a full-credit course. It counts as one of the 32 courses required for graduation.

UWS instructors work closely with their students, providing one-on-one tutorials, sustained attention to individual development and extensive comments on drafts. With larger classes, instructors could not give this kind of individualized attention.

Depending on availability, students may change their UWS to another in the same semester at the registrar's office.

UWS is a first-year requirement. If you do not fulfill it during your first year, you may be placed on academic probation.

An online writing assessment, taken in the spring before entering Brandeis, helps the Writing Program reach out to students who might most benefit from what COMP has to offer. (Students wishing to enroll directly into COMP without taking the online assessment may do so.)

International students must take UWS in their first or second semester at Brandeis. Nonnative English writers are strongly encouraged to sign up for free tutoring in the English Language Programs.

The Writing Center offers support for all students, including those enrolled in UWS, with 30- and 60-minute one-on-one tutorials available by appointment. The Writing Center also offers workshops on each of the major UWS assignments, including the lens paper and research paper.