University Writing Program

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

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. In addition, students will have the opportunity to research a case study on a topic of their choice, ranging from designer babies, to issues around vaccine hesitancy, to the rights of children to transition to a different gender. 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

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

A thick accent, bunch of grammar errors, jumble of different languages, and so on: it feels embarrassing to speak or write “bad” or “broken” English. We casually hear or say, “you speak very good English!” Is it a compliment or insult? Or we hear folks say that “everyone in American should speak English.” What do we assume as “bad” or “broken” 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. 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. 

 Amanda Presswood

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

Instruction offered remotely. 

John Nash was a brilliant mathematician at Princeton who won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in game theory even as he struggled with schizophrenia. How did academic culture influence Nash’s personal and professional life, and, more broadly, what role does culture play in neurodiversity? How does social media, such as Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok influence perceptions of neurodiversity?  In this course we will explore the way neurodiversity plays a role in culture beginning with an analysis of the film A Beautiful Mind, based on Nash’s life. Students will then choose their own research topic and text on neurodiversity, ranging from films such as Prozac Nation and Silver Linings Playbook to television series, such as Homeland and The Good Doctor. This course will help prepare students for academic research and writing, introducing them to peer reviewed research, academic databases, and the fundamentals of disciplinary conventions.

Matthew Burkett

Over the past year, particularly with the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen an increasing reliance on public health data to inform public policies, monitor progress, and guide individuals’ health decisions. Public health data has been spun into narratives about right versus wrong, infographics that motivate action, and graphs that illustrate trends, among others. Since we’ve been inundated with quantitative data, you likely know what it’s like to experience data as an audience member, however in this course, you’ll become the composer with data at your communicative disposal. This course will encourage you to think about questions like: What is public health data? How is data generated and collected? How is public health data used or misused in academic, professional, and societal contexts? How do writers frame data to achieve certain ends? How does data visualization relate to communication? We will explore these questions across a variety of texts including CDC and NIH publications, TedTalks, and academic articles. After analyzing public health data use in different genres, you’ll then embark on your own quantitative reasoning journey by crafting a research essay that incorporates public health data and strategic data visualization. 

According to Charles Darwin, “A naturalist’s life would be a happy one if [they] had only to observe and never to write.” Unfortunately (or fortunately!), much of a naturalist’s practice involves writing. In fact, the same holds true for those in other scientific fields — scientists must not only do science, but they, too, must write science. But what exactly are professional scientists writing? What motivates their composing and to whom do they write? What rhetorical choices do scientists make when communicating complex information? In this course, we’ll examine the discursive and generic requirements scientists face when composing in different contexts for different audiences. By considering a number of professional scientific genres — including research articles, grant applications, poster presentations, and public talks — we will explore questions of accessibility, writerly agency, persuasion, and objectivity. You’ll even have the opportunity to interview faculty members in the disciplines to learn about the writing tasks you might encounter as a working professional in your field. By the end of this course, you’ll have a more sophisticated understanding of professional writing in the sciences, and as such, you’ll be asked to produce two distinct genres of writing that take up the same research topic, albeit for different audiences and different communicative purposes. 

Whether you’re an athlete or fan, you have likely noticed that issues of race and gender have become increasingly central to conversations in collegiate and professional sports. These issues have raised important questions: To what extent do sports create a “level playing field” for women, transgender athletes and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)?  How do intersections of social class, mental health, and physical ability impact the discourse about race and gender in sports? In this class, we will investigate the history of racist and sexist policies and practices in amateur and professional sports as well as developments that place sports on the cutting edge of gender and racial equity in society at large. Case studies will include the raised fist salute by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, the passage of Title IX, current debates about financial compensation for elite NCAA athletes, and Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling for the national anthem in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

This section of UWS focuses on “Environmental Justice,” which encompasses the equal access of all people, regardless of race, ethnic origin, or socio-economic status, to the benefits of nature as well as the equitable distribution of environmental harms.  It gives visibility and voice to those who have been historically marginalized and suffered the most from environmental hazards and the effects of climate change: communities of color, indigenous peoples, and the poor.  The course invites students to examine power inequities, historical contexts, and scientific concepts to understand the causes and effects of environmental injustices and environmental racism.  It also invites students to explore stories of resilience and hope by researching, learning, and writing about inspirational individuals, groups, and movements who have taken action for a more just and equitable future. 

Instruction offered remotely 

Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, the gold rush, and Conestoga Wagons. When we think of the American West, we might envision images of cowboys and Indians, of danger and folk heroes. But these images mask a darker side of struggles and colonization; some even argue that Westward expansion in the 19th Century lay the roots for American expansionist policies in the Cold War era and beyond. This course will interrogate these seemingly conflicting narratives. We will first watch the classic John Ford western film, Stagecoach, in which the mysterious cowboy/outlaw character, Ringo Kid, helps to protect a group of innocent pioneer townsfolk on a dangerous stagecoach trip across the American Southwest. For the research essay, students select a topic and text of their choice, ranging from the film Pocahontas, to a painting by Georgia O’Keeffe, to a classic novel by John Steinbeck, in order to explore the idealization of the American West and the lingering effects of that idealization today.

As Eavan Boland’s poem “That the Science of Cartography is Limited” might remind us, maps are limited renderings of the places we encounter: not only because they are representations of these places rather than the places themselves, but because we make decisions about the features or data we encode in them and the borders we draw. Given how core the language of territory and borders is to how we understand what we know — What “field,” for example, are you thinking of majoring in? — this course will consider borders metaphorically as well as literally. In both of these contexts, what does it mean to be a citizen, or a migrant, or a tourist? What are the documents that confer or communicate these identities? We will read from fiction, watch movies, and listen to podcasts to think critically about the boundaries that separate physical spaces, as well as those that separate conceptual spaces like fields of knowledge and genres. Further, we will think through the decisions that we make as writers when wandering through these spaces, while representing the identities we and others claim in them. Specifically, we will focus on what documents and data can and can’t capture, as well as how they can, at different times, reinforce or break down the boundaries we draw.

Gregory Palermo 

Should an algorithm be used to grade your paper, based on what other papers look like? How about to determine what videos you see on YouTube or TikTok, based on what it thinks you like? Or what about to decide how long you are incarcerated, based on your risk of future crime? In this course, we will read popular and journalistic texts to learn about algorithms and how they can carry the politics of their designers and propagate bias. Discussing issues like digital redlining, recidivism assessment, and facial recognition, we will consider the extent to which the digital technologies that shape our daily experiences when sorting through information can potentially cause harm. Moreover, we will consider our role in resisting the categories chosen for us when sorting through the content we engage, in spaces ranging from social media to grocery stores — thinking, perhaps, about the times we are asked to be algorithmic ourselves as readers and writers. How might we still make space there for what we want to say?

Gregory Palermo 

Why has the number of people experiencing homelessness in Massachusetts more than doubled since 1990? This course will investigate the changing face of homelessness over the past fifty years and question why the “hidden homeless”, many of whom are couch-surfing college-age kids, constitute the fastest growing and least recognized segment of this population. Through literature, film and essays, this course will examine the shame that so often contributes to homelessness and discuss what it will take to shift this self-perpetuating cycle. Weekly reading responses, lively debate and your own mock profile of a person experiencing homelessness will help us address our individual and collective response to this national crisis. Guest speakers from area shelters will contribute to the discussion, and you will be prompted to dive deep into your own relation to homelessness through short essay assignments.

Julie Batten

The course will explore the content and form of subversive politics. Our exploration will focus on a variety of political, cultural, and social movements, including protest groups, subcultures, terrorist organizations, and political parties that challenge(d) the status quo. The class will study sources from history, film, sociology, and music to develop a deep understanding of what subversion has meant in the 20th and 21st centuries. In particular, we will question whether subversion is exclusively a negative expression of political, cultural, and social oppression, or whether it offers constructive forms of critique and resistance.

Alexander Herbert

How is a person’s race determined? Is it how they look, sound, or feel? Is it their biological or cultural filiation? While some may be tempted to say that race is merely a function of skin tone, it has historically been theorized as something much more complicated. Indeed, since 1896, when Plessy v. Ferguson established the “one-drop rule” as the law of the land in the United States, race has largely been understood to exceed the bounds of the visual, to be made up of something more than just the color of one’s skin. This “something more” will be the central focus of this course. Reading a wide range of creative, cultural-critical, historical, and scientific texts that grapple with the issue of racialized perception, we will spend the semester exploring how all five senses—not just sight—work to construct and deconstruct categories of racial difference.

Patrick Kindig

In 1941, poet T.S. Eliot lamented that the world had grown “distracted from distraction by distraction.” Living as we do in the era of Twitter and TikTok, we would be hard-pressed to disagree with him. But what exactly do we mean when we call something a distraction? How do distractions force us to attend to them, and why do we see this as a problem? In this course, we will explore how and why we draw the line between distraction and so-called “normal” or “healthy” attention. Borrowing analytical tools from the fields of medicine, psychology, philosophy, and cultural history and theory, we will examine both historical distractions (such as theater and film) and more contemporary ones (such as social media). We will also investigate the role played by distraction in such psychiatric disorders as ADHD and internet addiction. In analyzing these phenomena, we will develop a more nuanced understanding of how attention and distraction shape our experience of the world.

Patrick Kindig

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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. 

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.

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.