Princeton Writing Program

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Writing Seminars have a common goal—for students, through practice and guidance, to master essential strategies and techniques of academic inquiry and argument. Writing Seminars also have a common structure: unlike most other courses, which are organized around readings, Writing Seminars are organized primarily around writing—specifically, a series of four assignments, totaling about 30 finished pages.

While Writing Seminars all focus on the skills necessary for effective critical reading and writing, they differ in the topics and texts assigned. Below are topic descriptions of the many different Writing Seminars being offered this term.

As described in How to Enroll, you will enroll in a Writing Seminar by ranking your top 8 choices online at any time during the enrollment period. You can sort the list of Writing Seminars below by title and time to help you find the ones that interest you most and best fit your schedule. To read a full description of the course, click on the course title.  To increase your chances of being assigned to one of your top preferences, choose seminars that meet at a range of times, including morning and evening. Be sure to keep in mind your class schedule and extracurricular commitments.

Spring 2012 Enrollment Schedule

• Students Enroll in a Writing Seminar Online
  Wednesday, January 11, 9am - Friday, January 20, 5pm
• Students Notified by E-mail of Writing Seminar Assignments
  Tuesday, January 24, 5pm
• Students May Request a Writing Seminar Change Online
  Tuesday, January 24, 5pm - Tuesday, January 31, 5pm
• First Day of M/W Writing Seminars
  Monday, February 6
• First Day of T/Th Writing Seminars
  Tuesday, February 7

Writing Seminar Descriptions

The 1912 Election
Keith Shaw
WRI 107: T/TH 1:30pm-2:50pm

A century before Barack Obama launched his campaign for a second presidential term, Princeton’s own Woodrow Wilson won his first in a landslide victory. It was a bizarre election by any standard: the newly formed “Bull Moose” party carried six states as the runner-up, the Republican incumbent won a paltry eight electoral votes, and nearly a million Americans cast their ballot for a socialist. This Writing Seminar puts the 1912 election under a microscope to explore not only the unique conflicts of the Progressive Era, but also the continuities of America’s great political debates. For all that appears foreign in the America of Teddy Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and William Jennings Bryan, we nonetheless find many of the pressing issues which will define the 2012 election: corporate regulation, political corruption, tax justice, and overseas military intervention. We begin by analyzing the campaign speeches and policy platforms of the four 1912 presidential aspirants before moving on to ask how the candidates fit into the unusual evolution of America’s political traditions. For the research essay, students investigate a controversy of their choice, tracing its arc beyond the Progressive Era and through the 20th century to advance an argument about U.S. politics today.

Accounting for Taste
Emily Coit
WRI 123: T/TH 8:30am-9:50am
WRI 124: T/TH 11:00am-12:20pm

“There’s no accounting for taste,” the old saying goes, implying that we like our favorite shoes, cars, and paintings for reasons that simply can’t be explained. In this Writing Seminar, we challenge that assumption. Taking late 19th-century literature and culture as a point of departure, we delve into debates from history, sociology, and literary studies in order to better understand the construction of taste, giving special attention to the complex role that “good taste” can play in perpetuating social hierarchies. We begin by examining the treatment of class in Guy de Maupassant’s short story “The Necklace.” Then we consider Henry James’s novel The Spoils of Poynton in the context of the intensifying consumer culture of the fin de siècle. During the second half of the semester, students conduct original research on an independently designed topic, investigating the role of taste in a work of art or cultural practice of their own choosing. Possible topics include fashion in Japanese youth subcultures, controversial interpretations of Bach's music, Starbucks coffee as a status symbol, and the changing tastes of Princeton students themselves. In the last part of the course, students write personal essays that attempt to account for their own tastes.

American Revolutions
Dov Grohsgal
WRI 184: M/W 8:30am-9:50am

What constitutes an American revolution? The word means “to murder and create,” as political scientist Louis Hartz wrote, borrowing from T.S. Eliot, “but the American experience has been projected strangely in the realm of creation alone.” Hartz is one voice among many in the scholarly debate that we engage in in this Writing Seminar as we challenge historical conceptions of revolution. We reconsider our own assumptions about the meaning of the word as we ask: How does a movement become a “revolution”? Who owns the language of revolution, and why does it matter? We begin by analyzing primary sources from the American Revolution, including texts by Thomas Paine, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. Next we engage important secondary sources—including Hartz and eminent historian Richard Hofstadter—and learn the method and style of scholarly debate, preparing to enter that discussion in the second half of the semester. Students then research an event of their choosing with revolutionary characteristics—for instance, the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, the “Reagan Revolution,” the sexual revolution, or September 11th. Finally, students write an op-ed piece from the imagined vantage point of 2076 to consider whether we now live in revolutionary times.

Arts of Protest
Andrew R. Mossin
WRI 189: M/W 1:30pm-2:50pm
WRI 190: M/W 3:00pm-4:20pm

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,” Allen Ginsberg proclaimed in the opening line of his groundbreaking poem, “Howl.” For poets, musicians, and other artists of the 1950s and 1960s, Ginsberg’s poem became a rallying cry against core tenets of American ideology. Why do writers, artists, and performers often position themselves in opposition to commonly held understandings of America? What kind of changed nation do these artists envision through their songs, novels, plays, and performances? In this Writing Seminar, we explore how various artists beginning in the mid-20th century reimagined their critical role at a time when the center of American culture resisted confronting dominant beliefs and values. We begin by contemplating how countercultural tendencies that critics have attributed to the Beat movement manifest themselves in Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” We then examine how Bob Dylan redefined the cultural moment of the 1960s through his inspired linking of folk and rock music with an activist politics of protest. In the second half of the semester, students research key descendants of this countercultural tradition in literature, music, and performance. Students end the semester by creating and producing their own protest narratives in a form of their choosing.

Chivalry and Feudalism in the Middle Ages
James Byrne
WRI 104: T/TH 8:30am-9:50am
WRI 105: T/TH 11:00am-12:20pm

In medieval romance, chivalrous knights risk their lives for the honor of virtuous ladies. Yet these courtly tales also address compelling social problems, inviting their readers to question and revise cultural practices. Peasants and clergy alike challenged oppression at the hands of lords and argued for a more just social order. In this Writing Seminar, we study the role of chivalry and feudalism in medieval society, asking how well romantic notions of chivalrous behavior reflect the complexity of medieval life. We begin with courtly literature, assessing the arguments for social change in the Arthurian romance Cliges and the epic tale of war and heroism Raoul de Cambrai. We then turn to history, assessing the miracles of Sainte Foy to illuminate the relationship between medieval power and violence. In the second half of the course, students conduct research on feudal society, drawing on sources of their choosing, such as courtly romances, chronicles of the Crusades, or manuals for proper princely behavior. We conclude the semester by considering the depiction of the Middle Ages in popular culture. Possible topics include Harry Potter, Dungeons and Dragons, Robin Hood, and One Thousand and One Nights.

Cityscapes
Michelle Coghlan
WRI 192: M/W 1:30pm-2:50pm
WRI 193: M/W 7:30pm-8:50pm

Cities are defined by their geography, but they are always more than just a spot on the map. As French theorist Jean Baudrillard has suggested, “Cities can be distinguished by the catastrophic fantasies they give rise to and which, in turn, are vital to their essential charm.” But what’s at stake when we imagine New York as King Kong and Los Angeles as Earthquake? In this Writing Seminar, we examine the American city as both a place and a concept, as a site of belonging and exclusion, nightmare and promise. Taking L.A. as our opening test case, we begin by reading Nathanael West’s apocalyptic novel of 1930s Hollywood, The Day of the Locust, in light of Joan Didion’s famous meditation on the city in Slouching Towards Bethlehem. We then turn to two classic Hollywood films, Chinatown and Blade Runner, to complicate our reading of Los Angeles as cultural product and geographical location. In the second part of the course, students choose a cityscape in the form of a work of literature, film, art, music, or museum exhibition, and research the ways it reimagines an American city. Finally, we create our own multimedia cityscapes about an urban space of our choosing.

The Crisis of Democracy
Ali Aslam
WRI 112: M/W 8:30am-9:50am
WRI 113: M/W 11:00am-12:20pm

Today democracy is often considered the only morally legitimate type of government. Yet for much of history, critics have rejected democracies as rule by the uneducated masses. How do we explain this shift in the way democracies are valued? What can we learn about our own democracy by studying how this form of government has been contested and defined? Are democracies best understood as a form of government, a collective activity, or a means of ensuring accountability? In this Writing Seminar, we consider the arguments for and against democracy at three critical historical moments. We begin by reading Thucydides’ History and consider his ambivalent depiction of Athenian democracy. Next, we read the Federalist Papers together with scholarly sources to explore the extent to which the ratification of the American Constitution was a democratic process. For the research essay, students study a political, economic, or cultural institution that threatens contemporary democracies, such as multinational corporations, or the increased importance of treaty organizations like the European Union, and consider how to democratize these institutions. We will conclude by writing op-ed articles that intervene in a public debate about democratic practices and processes.

The Cultural History of Slavery
Nika Elder
WRI 140: M/W 7:30pm-8:50pm

The transatlantic slave trade has long been understood as an economic strategy with political consequences. But it was also the lived experience of thousands of men, women, and children, both enslaved and free, whose daily lives were pervaded by the raw materials it yielded and the culture it produced. How did the ideologies behind slavery inform the art and artifacts that it occasioned, and how did they in turn impact the people who made and used them? This Writing Seminar follows the trade route to explore how material and visual culture communicates ideas—more subtly, if no less stringently, than conventional propaganda. We start by interpreting the luscious still-life paintings produced by the Dutch in the 17th century against their illustrated maps and encyclopedias of the “New World” to explore how images create meaning. Next, we enlist theories by Michel Foucault and Louis Althusser to think about the implicit functions of pre-colonial architecture in Ghana. For the research project, students investigate the cultural significance of a work of art or artifact from North or South America informed by the slave trade. At the semester’s end, each student pitches an exhibit about slavery consisting of works selected from the Princeton University Art Museum.
 

Darwin in His Time and Ours
Anne DeWitt
WRI 126: M/W 8:30am-9:50am
WRI 127: M/W 11:00am-12:20pm

Historian of science James Secord recently dismissed the idea of a “Darwinian Revolution,” arguing that the idea of evolution was widespread before the publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species in 1859. But if Secord is right, what is it about Darwin that places him at the center of debates about science and religion, from the 19th century to the present? Why do we remember, celebrate, and argue about his book? Why does he inspire not only scientists but literary scholars, historians, and novelists? In this Writing Seminar, we investigate society’s changing reactions to Darwin through the lenses of literature and the history of science. We begin with the Origin, examining how Darwin positioned his arguments in relation to other theories of evolution, and how he imagined his Victorian audience. Next, we turn to the reception of Darwin’s ideas, investigating H.G. Wells’s response to the theory of evolution and its implications in his novel The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896). For the research paper, students explore the intellectual history of Darwin’s ideas and their influence or analyze a creative response to Darwin in literature or art. We conclude with a symposium in which students present their findings.

Ethics of Honor and Competition
Joshua Vandiver
WRI 145: M/W 7:30pm-8:50pm

“Always to be the best and to excel all others.” In Homer’s epic tale the Iliad, a warrior makes this famous statement. But is striving to be the best always desirable? Classical Athenians argued that cooperation, not competition, was key to civic life. Philosophers have said that wisdom and self-knowledge should be sought above glory. And in later times historians have shown how perceived dishonor can lead to radical reaction, as it did in Germany after the First World War. These disputes raise questions concerning us all: What is worth competing for, and who does the judging? If some are honored, must others be dishonored as well? This Writing Seminar tackles these questions from the standpoint of classical political thought. First, we test Socrates’ argument that wisdom is a more worthy aim than political glory. Turning to Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, we study how arguments about honor lie at the root of Western political thought. In the second half of the semester, students research an arena of competitive honor of their choice, using political theories to inform their arguments. Possible topics include Olympic competitions, presidential elections, and early decision admission policies. We conclude by writing op-ed articles that explore how ancient concepts can help us reflect on honor and competition today.

The Ethics of Human Experimentation
Andrew Zwicker
WRI 167: T/TH 8:30am-9:50am

Every medicine and treatment is first tried on human volunteers before it is widely used. How far should we go to heal the sick, to improve the healthy, to protect the vulnerable? In this Writing Seminar, we examine the ethical questions that surround experimentation on human beings. What does “informed consent” mean? Can a minor participating in an experiment give consent? Who should decide if the benefits outweigh the risks? We begin by examining the international conventions of medical ethics established after World War II, focusing on the ethical issues that surround the definition of disease. Next, we look at the pursuit of human perfection through biotechnology, asking ourselves how far parents should go to “improve” their children and questioning the various problems linked with the quest for superior performance. In the second half of the semester, students research a topic related to an ethical problem of their own choosing, informed by consideration of such issues as embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, the use of placebos, and genetic enhancement. Finally, we use students’ personal experiences and reflections posted throughout the semester to our class blog to grapple with a variety of ethical issues raised by human experimentation.

The Ethics of Persuasion
Kristin Dombek
WRI 173: M/W 1:30pm-2:50pm

“Writers are always selling somebody out,” confessed Joan Didion in the preface to her revolutionary book of journalism Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Centuries before, Aristotle argued that the most important element of persuasion is the writer’s “ethos”: our sense of his or her fair-mindedness and character. If writing nonfiction means selling others out, is ethos always a fake? Or can writing be an ethical act—honest, generous, even redemptive? In this Writing Seminar, we reckon with the problem of ethos and the ethics of representing the self and others in journalistic and academic essays. We study great American nonfiction writers from a range of genres, including Didion, Annie Dillard, Janet Malcolm, Tim O’Brien, Richard Rodriguez, Gay Talese, and David Foster Wallace. We begin by examining essays that make political or cultural arguments, and then turn to essays that depict the experience of others, testing Didion’s critique of writing. In research projects, we craft ethos in academic writing, borrowing from the techniques of literary journalism and drawing on scholarly research from the humanities, social sciences, and sciences to make arguments about current political or cultural events or controversies. Our final essay is a brief creative essay from personal experience.

Fans and Consumer Culture
Marion C. Wrenn
WRI 149: T/TH 3:00pm-4:20pm
WRI 150: T/TH 7:30pm-8:50pm

After the sci-fi television series Firefly was canceled in 2003, enthusiastic fans—dubbed “Browncoats,” after resistance fighters in the show—generated enough buzz to convince Universal Pictures to produce a spin-off film, Serenity. The Browncoats’ success in eliciting a product they wanted to consume illustrates how deeply embedded fandom is in consumer culture today. Trekkies, soccer hooligans, opera buffs, Harry “Potterheads,” Janeites (devotees of Jane Austen), and gamers—these and other fan groups are proliferating and exerting power as never before. In this Writing Seminar, we draw on sociology and media studies to ask how the cultural practices of fans illuminate the broader logics of democracy, capitalism, and globalization. We begin by using the critical theories of social philosophers Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer to speculate on how fans become both dupes of consumer culture and active participants in it. We then analyze the popularity of professional wrestling, borrowing ideas from the cultural theorists Roland Barthes and Pierre Bourdieu to aid our investigation. For the research essay, students use ideas about audience, spectacle, and the culture industry to interpret a site or expression of fandom. Finally, students collaborate on a symposium about the relation of fans to contemporary consumer culture.

Fashioning Identity
Karen E. H. Skinazi
WRI 157: M/W 8:30am-9:50am
WRI 158: M/W 11:00am-12:20pm

In the early 20th century, immigration, class movement, and challenges to segregation created anxiety in America about the nature of identity. On the one hand, philosopher Horace Kallen pronounced that identity was determined by birth: “Men may change their clothes, their politics, their wives . . . they cannot change their grandfathers.” Yet at the same time, thousands of other Americans found ways to assimilate and adapt to new environments. What do attempts to restrict definitions of identity tell us about cultural anxieties regarding class, race, and gender? And how do individuals find ways to belong to a group while preserving their identities? In this Writing Seminar, we examine the controversies that emerge as people fashion identities to create and join communities. We begin by using theories on “passing” to evaluate the construction of self in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and the film The Jazz Singer. We then use critical sources on race to assess the formation of modern African American identity in the writings of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. Next, students use research to investigate the evolution of any group identity. Possible topics include secular Judaism, eating club rivalries at Princeton, and partisanship. We conclude by creating virtual communities that explore the construction of online identities.

The Fourteenth Amendment
David Hollander
WRI 114: M/W 11:00am-12:20pm

“Three generations of imbeciles are enough,” proclaimed Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in his infamous 1927 decision permitting an eighteen-year-old woman to be sterilized against her will. His ruling rejected the woman’s claim that the government’s actions violated her rights to equal treatment under the law and to due process, rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. While courts have come a long way since 1927, debates still rage about the scope of these surprisingly fragile protections. In this Writing Seminar, we explore the nature and limits of Fourteenth Amendment rights by looking at contemporary legal contests over them. We begin by examining how the concept of equality might apply in the controversial 2007 Supreme Court decision ruling against using race as a factor in desegregating Seattle public schools. Next, students explore how various constitutional theories, such as Justice Scalia’s “originalism,” Justice Breyer’s “active liberty,” and “democratic constitutionalism,” along with theories from other legal scholars, such as Cass Sunstein, inform the debate over same-sex marriage. Students then choose and research a Fourteenth Amendment controversy and articulate an argument about how it might be resolved. Finally, we write op-ed pieces that frame these complex issues for a general readership.

History of the Body
Olivia Weisser
WRI 171: M/W 3:00pm-4:20pm
WRI 172: M/W 7:30pm-8:50pm

We tend to view our bodies in fixed, objective terms: bodies are composed of blood, muscles, organs, and bones. Yet conceptions of the body have changed over time as a result of shifting medical knowledge, cultural norms, and beliefs. For example, 18th-century Europeans believed the body consisted of elastic tubes, while traditional Chinese healers continue to treat the body as a network of flowing energy. This Writing Seminar investigates the body’s history by exploring the ways societies have understood, experienced, and pathologized bodies across time and place. We begin by analyzing novelist Fanny Burney’s first-hand account of breast cancer surgery in order to think critically about the shifting nature of the patient-doctor relationship in the 19th century. Next, we put the 1932 film Freaks in conversation with scholarship on the history of disability and American sideshows. For the research essay, students examine a historical or contemporary bodily practice, treatment, or ritual and place it within a cultural context. Possible topics include plastic surgery, tattooing, dissection, dieting, historical conceptions of race, or embodied religious practices such as fasting. Finally, students write personal histories that highlight one of the ways their own cultural environment has shaped a particular bodily experience or perception.

The Human and Its Other
Emily McDonald
WRI 175: T/TH 3:00pm-4:20pm
WRI 176: T/TH 7:30pm-8:50pm

From neural implants allowing us to type without lifting a finger to the creation of pigs with human blood flowing through their veins, this Writing Seminar explores human bodies increasingly blended with animals, plants, machines, and objects. Focusing on embodiment—the body as a way of inhabiting the world and as a source of subjectivity—we explore how “human” is defined in different historical moments and cultural contexts. Engaging a diverse range of ethnographic sources, we analyze the debate about where the human body begins and ends, and interrogate what’s at stake politically, socially, and biologically. To begin, we investigate the unprecedented ways in which human embodiment is transformed through biotechnology, bringing philosophers like Descartes into dialogue with Lesley Sharp’s compelling account of organ transplantation. Next, we analyze the work of several artists, including Susana Soares’s intriguing glass chambers designed to allow bees to detect human cancer, in light of Donna Haraway’s notion of “living with” other species. In the second half of the semester, students concentrate on a form of embodiment of their own choosing, considering its implications for how we understand the human organism. Possible topics include prosthetic body parts, seeing-eye dogs, spirit possession, and the increasingly blurry boundary between humans and computers.

Imagining America
Monica F. Jacobe
WRI 198: T/TH 8:30am-9:50am CANCELLED
WRI 199: T/TH 11:00am-12:20pm CANCELLED

The Inquisition
Christopher W. Close
WRI 137: M/W 8:30am-9:50am
WRI 138: M/W 11:00am-12:20pm

A heretic being burned at the stake is one of the iconic images of early modern attempts to punish and suppress religious difference, an effort commonly referred to as the Inquisition. But while the Inquisition may loom large in the popular imagination as a brutal, monolithic system that oppressed millions, the individual inquisitions in Europe’s different countries in fact displayed widely varying goals and purposes. In this Writing Seminar, we move beyond common perceptions of the Inquisition to explore the real history behind early modern criminal justice. We begin by analyzing historical records of witchcraft trials and public executions to refine the theory of philosopher Michel Foucault, who posits a direct relationship between power and punishment in the Inquisition. Next, we investigate the Spanish Inquisition, the largest and most controversial inquisitorial system in Europe, which historians depict either as the height of religious fanaticism and brutality or as the epitome of scrupulous legal procedure. For the research paper, students investigate any of the numerous inquisitorial courts in Europe by drawing on a variety of sources such as trial records, gallows speeches, an executioner’s diary, and images of public punishment. We conclude by critically reviewing modern historians’ accounts of the Inquisition.

Main Street USA
Leanne Wood
WRI 131: M/W 3:00pm-4:20pm NEW
WRI 132: M/W 7:30pm-8:50pm

Economist Robert Reich described 2009 as “the year that Wall Street bounced back and Main Street got shafted.” But what does “Main Street” mean, exactly? Even as it is used as shorthand for an idealized image of America and the concerns of ordinary Americans, Main Street has also sometimes been portrayed as the imagined home of our worst tendencies—pettiness, prejudice, and provincialism. In this Writing Seminar, we consider the significance of these contradictory visions of Main Street by tracing the ways that they grow out of American literature, theater, art, and politics. We begin with a study in nostalgia as we analyze the stylized and trouble-free townscape that Walt Disney designed for Disneyland in 1955. We then consider how literary satires and critiques of Main Street, such as Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street (1920), complicate the musical films Meet Me in St. Louis and The Music Man. During the latter half of the course, students develop their own topics for research as we debate the ways that our national and individual identities depend upon our ideas about Main Street. Finally, students create a guided tour—a podcast, guidebook, or photo-essay—for a street that they know well.

Mental Illness and Culture
Noelle J. Molé
WRI 179: T/TH 7:30pm-8:50pm

Renowned psychologist Alfred Adler once cautioned: "The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well." Many would agree. But how can we as a society, and psychology as a field, classify the "abnormal" into discrete diagnoses while admitting that the concept "normal" is extremely problematic? In this Writing Seminar, we examine the troubled threshold between abnormal and normal by examining mental illness in a cross-cultural and historical context. We begin by reading an ethnographic study of bipolar disorder in America to reassess Nikolas Rose's argument that proposes we have entered a new cultural paradigm of defining mental illnesses "neurochemically." Next, students select a film of their choosing about mental illness to test Ian Hacking's provocative theory that medical diagnoses are neither entirely socially constructed, or "made up," nor do they map neatly onto naturally occurring biological phenomena. In the second half of the semester, students conduct research on a mental illness of their choice, further complicating our understanding of normalcy. Possible topics include phobias, the insanity defense, and lobotomies. Finally, students write critical reviews of how popular media represent mental illness in literature and film.

Music and Madness
Gregory Spears
WRI 163: M/W 11:00am-12:20pm

During a fit of passion, the young Robert Schumann composed his piano masterpiece Kreisleriana (1838), a sonic portrait of the disturbed emotional life of a fictitious musician, Johannes Kreisler. In this Writing Seminar, our purpose is to explore such artistic and often explosive depictions of madness and, more generally, to interrogate the Romantic myth that creative artists, in order to be great, must live and work “on the edge.” Rock musicians Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix are but two real-life examples of artists that reflect our continuing societal obsession with the self-destructive performer whose over-the-top musical style is reflected in a tumultuous life offstage. Throughout the semester we will examine the popular reception of these and other famous composers and musicians who may have experienced mental illness. In addition to analyzing different performances of Schumann’s Kreisleriana, we view several musician biopics—including Shine, about the pianist David Helfgott, and Hilary and Jackie, about the cellist Jacqueline du Pré—and read accounts of various musicians’ struggles with depression, obsession, and mania. We’re aided in our examination of creativity and illness by several cultural theorists and commentators, among them Susan Sontag, Slavoj Žižek, Albert Rothenberg, and Kay Jamison.

Music and Power
Andrea Mazzariello
WRI 135: M/W 3:00pm-4:20pm
WRI 136: M/W 7:30pm-8:50pm

Stefani Germanotta casts off her given name and transforms herself into the cultural force known as Lady Gaga. Band members of The Make Up, promoting a religion known mysteriously as “Gospel Yeh-yeh,” create sham identities for themselves as anticapitalist revolutionaries. The Gang of Four loads their “perverted disco” with scathing critiques of contemporary culture and politics. How do artists position themselves in relation to the dominant culture? To what extent can we hear the sound of cultural resistance in music itself? This course explores music’s ability to refine, question, and contradict prevailing values and mores. First we use Lady Gaga’s The Fame to test Theodor Adorno’s influential assertion that popular music, by definition, enforces the status quo. Next, we examine music criticism and punk rock manifestos to evaluate the Gang of Four’s richly provocative album entertainment!. Students then focus on a long form musical work of their choice and make a researched argument about its relationship to power. Possible topics include Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet, Bikini Kill’s Revolution Girl Style Now!, and Laurie Anderson’s Big Science. We conclude by creating press kits for imaginary bands relevant to a particular cultural and historical moment.

Saints and Martyrs
Mary Doyno
WRI 181: T/TH 11:00am-12:20pm
WRI 182: T/TH 1:30pm-2:50pm

We may most readily envision the saint as a haloed otherworldly figure, and picture the medieval martyr dying at the stake. Yet the concepts of saintliness and martyrdom continue to have resonance in our own era. Princess Diana, Kurt Cobain, and Che Guevara have been culturally canonized, and suicide bombers believe their deaths to be righting wrongs of the modern world. This Writing Seminar explores the historical and ideological underpinnings of sanctity and martyrdom as well as their persistence into the 21st century. We begin by looking at two foundational texts: the diary of a young Roman woman who died by a gladiator’s sword, and the biography of a medieval hermit who turned to the manipulation of his body to prove his beliefs. We then investigate the development of the cult of Saint Francis through word and image. For the research essay, students select a figure perceived as saint or martyr—whether secular, such as Eva Perón, or religious, such as Joan of Arc—in any period, making an argument about the figure’s significance in historical or cultural context. We conclude by looking at images of saints in the Princeton University Art Museum to inspire our creation of modern-day visual biographies.

Secrets and Confessions
Ken Nielsen
WRI 186: T/TH 3:00pm-4:20pm
WRI 187: T/TH 7:30pm-8:50pm

From the privacy of a church confessional to the public forum of cable television, the telling of secrets is understood as both a source of scandal and of social—or religious—salvation. But how does the definition and appeal of a secret change in a world where strangers routinely trade confessions on Facebook, Twitter, PostSecret, and YouTube? And what happens to our understanding of privacy as we gain access to the personal lives of public people from John Edwards to Lindsay Lohan to Tiger Woods? In this Writing Seminar, we investigate the functions of secrets and confessions in American culture. We begin by analyzing Bill Clinton’s political memoir in light of Michel Foucault’s theories about the power of confession in memoirs and histories. We then analyze shows like Jerry Springer and Oprah through divergent theories of the role of television in modern U.S. culture. Next, students research a historical or contemporary scandal of their own choosing—from the Salem witch trials to Congressman Anthony Weiner’s resignation over sexting—and make an argument about secrets and confessions in that cultural moment. Finally, students try their hand at the genre, crafting fictional confessions—from politician, film star, or criminal.

Self and Avatar
Francesca Collins
WRI 197: M/W 7:30pm-8:50pm

In his 1909 story “The Machine Stops,” E. M. Forster imagines a networked self eerily familiar to the ever-connected 21st-century reader who inhabits the world of Twitter feeds, chatrooms, and online gaming communities. In this Writing Seminar, we explore the psychological, social, and philosophical dimensions of the online self. What is the relationship between the person behind the keyboard and the character portrayed in their profile or by their avatar? We begin by using case studies of fictive online identities to test William James’s theory of the “self as total person.” Next we consider performances of self in the movie Catfish––and the implications of this for online relationships and interactions––through the lens of Erving Goffman’s famous theory about the presentation of selfhood in everyday life. For the research essay, students investigate how an interpersonal practice, community, or social institution of their choosing has been altered by ubiquitous online presence. Possible topics include friendship, play, art, and sexuality. Finally, we create an ebook in the style of Cooper's Alter Ego, in which we present and reflect upon the Second Life avatars we create for ourselves, meeting as a class “in world.”

The Socialist Experiment and Its Legacies
Megan Foreman
WRI 147: T/TH 7:30pm-8:50pm
WRI 148: T/TH 1:30pm-2:50pm NEW

The collapse of the Berlin Wall in late 1989 was one among many symbols that heralded sweeping political and economic changes across Central and Eastern Europe. It marked the end of a socialist experiment of state-planned economies and party-state systems that had dominated these countries for over fifty years. While experts at the time heralded this as a cultural revolution, they failed to anticipate how profoundly the socialist experiment had shaped how the world could be imagined and experienced across the “post-socialist” block. In this Writing Seminar, we explore the impact and legacies of this socialist experiment. We begin by using ethnographic accounts of countries under socialist systems to refine Marx and Engels’s economic theories. Next, we analyze Goodbye Lenin!, a spoof about the transition from socialism to democracy in Eastern Germany, using readings about memory and space, consumer practices, and the privatization of state-planned economies to inform our interpretations. For the research project, students consider an object produced in, or about, socialism or post-socialism. Possible topics include The Lives of Others, Solidarity, or the Beijing Olympics. We end the semester by writing editorials that explore the legacy of socialism in a present-day geopolitical conflict or event.

Society and the Witch
Richard Joseph Martin
WRI 164: M/W 7:30pm-8:50pm

Riding broomsticks and dancing in the woods at night, witches are often imagined to be outside society. But in these representations may be keys to understanding social norms, norms that get articulated through the witch’s very violation of them. In this Writing Seminar, we ask: What do discourses about witches tell us about the societies that produce them? We begin by examining competing anthropological approaches to witchcraft. Here, we enter into critical debates about the purpose and meaning of magic by considering historical and ethnographic accounts of witches as test cases. Next, we use Mary Douglas’s classic treatise on Purity and Danger as a lens through which to analyze popular representations of witches, such as Harry Potter or Bewitched. How, for instance, do these works help us understand political struggles over ideas about class or gender? In the second half of the semester, students choose artistic, ethnographic, or historical examples of witches and use research to situate their chosen phenomenon in an intellectual context and examine its social significance. Possible topics include Wicked, the Salem witch trials, and neopaganism. For the Dean’s Date assignment, students create fictional stories about witches as a way to address an issue of contemporary concern.

Technology and Culture
Sajan Saini
WRI 121: T/TH 8:30am-9:50am
WRI 122: T/TH 1:30pm-2:50pm

When President Lincoln was assassinated, it took eleven days to inform the Parliament of London. Today we transfer multimedia documents around the globe in milliseconds. While technological advancements have always presented humanity with opportunities and challenges, the acceleration of materials innovation in the 20th century has led to radical change in our labor force, economy, and education. In this Writing Seminar, we explore the ethical and cultural implications of recent developments in applied science and engineering. How are communities affected by rapid technological growth? How might societies create incentives for potentially beneficial technologies and safeguards against technologies with the capacity to harm? We begin by exploring how the 1979 film The China Syndrome responds to cultural debates about technology in the Nuclear Age. We then analyze films and theories like Moore’s law to assess how the exponential growth of electronics has transformed society with mixed results. In the semester’s second half, students research a contemporary technology of their choice and investigate its commercial or cultural implications. Possible topics include Wikipedia, smart phones, nuclear energy, or space travel. We conclude by writing op-eds for a popular audience about the technologies we studied, evaluating their potential benefits or risks.

Time Travel
Maika Pollack
WRI 185: T/TH 7:30pm-8:50pm

China recently banned representations of time travel on radio, film, and television, claiming they “casually make up myths, have monstrous and weird plots, use absurd tactics, and even promote feudalism, superstition, fatalism, and reincarnation.” Such an extreme reaction underscores the potentially subversive nature of fictional journeys in time. In this Writing Seminar, we examine the functions and paradoxes of time travel in literature, film, art, and philosophy. How does evoking the past rewrite the present? What can representations of the future tell us about our cultural anxieties? And why do images, objects, and smells have the uncanny ability to transport us in time? We first use influential theories by Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche to examine H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine and excerpts from Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way. Then we analyze films in which problems of time travel are central: Chris Marker’s La Jetée and Robert Zemeckis's Back to the Future. Next, students make researched arguments about the significance of time travel in a work of their choice. Possible topics include projects on works by Ursula Le Guin, Robert Smithson, or Albert Einstein. Finally, we create our own time machines: photographs or fiction about journeys to the past or future.

The Tourist
Anne Moffitt
WRI 151: T/TH 1:30pm-2:50pm

From the centuries-old tradition of the European Grand Tour as a coming-of-age ritual to the latest wave of eco-tourism, tourists have long sought education and leisure far from home. But is tourism an avenue to self-awareness and global citizenship—or does it merely show us what we want to see? Can tourists bridge the divide between the cosmopolitan and the local, or do they simply reinforce it? In this Writing Seminar, we use literature, film, and cultural theory to explore tourism as pervasive social practice and influential economic driver, investigating what the tourist reveals about us and our relationship to the world. We begin by analyzing the figure of the tourist in Henry James’s “Daisy Miller” and the film adaptation of E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View. Next, we place the practice of tourism in the context of colonialism by looking at tourists from the native’s perspective in Jamaica Kincaid’s narrative of Antigua, A Small Place. For the research paper, students choose a representation of a place and develop an argument about how this depiction shapes our understanding of tourists and tourism. Possible topics include travel magazine features, Gauguin’s paintings of Tahiti, and Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat. We conclude by creating our own marketing material for a tourist destination.

Transformations of the Self
Neil J. Young
WRI 115: T/TH 8:30am-9:50am
WRI 116: T/TH 11:00am-12:20pm

From animal abuser to animal advocate: Is star athlete Michael Vick’s transformation an authentic narrative of redemption or a cynical commercial performance? When Hollywood celebrities go into rehab, how does the public reinvention of their image encourage or interfere with the private possibility of change? And what does the thriving self-help industry tell us about everyday efforts to remake ourselves in our own eyes as well as the eyes of others? In this seminar, we examine how individuals construct stories of transformation—and how society consumes them. We first consider religious conversions, reading the classic Biblical tale of Saul’s conversion, as well as later narratives like those of Joseph Smith and Malcolm X. We then place the movie Eat Pray Love in cultural and theoretical context, analyzing how this chronicle of one woman’s search for spirituality and self-knowledge resonates with the literature of self-help and Carl Jung’s theory of individuation. For the research paper, students investigate an account of political, social, or “lifestyle” transformation, such as Whittaker Chambers leaving Communism, immigrants becoming American, transsexuals changing sexes, or meat eaters turning to veganism. In the final essay, students reflect on a self-transformation of their own.

Witnessing Disaster
Timothy Recuber
WRI 128: T/TH 3:00pm-4:20pm
WRI 129: T/TH 7:30pm-8:50pm

As the Pentagon burned and the Twin Towers crashed to the ground on September 11th, millions of spectators across the country and the world watched on live television. While distant viewers of this tragedy were shocked and horrified, many people were nonetheless drawn to the continuous coverage. Why do audiences tend to experience both fascination and despair when viewing disasters from afar? How does such ambivalence complicate our understanding of the viewer’s ethical responsibility to others? And how should audiences cope with the moral and emotional problems associated with watching real-life tragedies unfold? These questions may seem unique to our hyper-mediated age, but scholars have debated them for centuries. In this Writing Seminar, we examine the history of this ongoing debate. We begin by reassessing Voltaire’s account of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake in light of recent theories about the ethics of representing disasters. Next, we contribute to debates about disasters by critiquing news coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings. For the research essay, students choose a disaster or tragedy and make an argument about how it is mediated and consumed by distant audiences. We end the semester by creating memorial websites devoted to our research topics.

Witnessing War
Rachel Galvin
WRI 133: M/W 8:30am-9:50am
WRI 134: M/W 1:30pm-2:50pm

War is a defining phenomenon of the 20th century, yet there is no consensus on how to represent it. How can the experience of extremity or atrocity be described? Who might provide a more trustworthy account of events—a soldier, civilian eyewitness, news reporter, or philosopher? How do political bias and propaganda complicate our understanding of the reliability of war stories? We begin by evaluating competing arguments about war and its representation by writers including Wilfred Owen and Tim O’Brien. Next, we wrestle with the intellectual’s role in witnessing war by reading Primo Levi’s autobiographical account of Auschwitz, The Drowned and the Saved, alongside critical texts by writers such as Giorgio Agamben, Edward Said, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Susan Sontag. For the research paper, students choose a conflict and evaluate its depiction in literature, art, or film. Among the many possibilities are Francis Ford Coppola’s harrowing critique of Vietnam, Apocalypse Now, Martin Amis’s experimental Holocaust novel, Time’s Arrow, and Pablo Picasso’s condemnation of the Spanish Civil War in the painting Guernica. We conclude by responding to Sontag’s controversial article about the American use of torture at Abu Ghraib prison to arrive at our own arguments about the ethics of witnessing atrocity.