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How do writing and visual media interpret the past? Through events such as US slavery, the Holocaust, and Vietnam, we’ll examine what happens when different narratives enter the collective memory. Informal writing, formal essays, and oral presentations are required.
Instructor: Elan Barnehama
This is a writing course designed specifically for international students whose mother tongue is not English. Such students more directly and obviously experience language as a tool that they shape for their purposes, rather than as a transparent medium. This special awareness will work to their advantage in this course. The theme of the class is the complex relationship between words and worlds. How do words work to articulate a depth in experience, and at the same time, how do they manipulate and frame that "truth"? What is expressed, and what is erased? We will explore the dangers and delights of language's transfigurative power both in our own writing and in short works by authors from a wide variety of cultures. We will become more conscious readers and writers by investigating "commonsense" definitions and by unmasking the hidden assumptions in our own and others' arguments. In a final research paper we will analyze variable constructions of the same experience: in a memoir, and in independent accounts of the memoirist's life. Our goal is to come away from any piece of writing with a deeper awareness of what is constructed, what is revealed, and what is missing. Where are we informed, and where are we manipulated? Where do we inform, and where do we manipulate, both our readers and ourselves?
Instructor: Melissa Bagg
Reading, thinking and writing about the forces that govern and shape language. A series of analytical essays will focus on issues such as political correctness, obscenity, gender bias in language, and censorship.
Instructor: Holly Davis
For better or worse, U.S. culture is in large part based on consumerism: the decisions we make about what we eat, how we dress, how & where & why we work, how we enjoy ourselves, and even how we judge our self-worth are all influenced by cultural messages telling us to buy stuff. We are bombarded each day with thousands of media images, which—if only due to sheer volume—have lasting impact on how we exist in our world. The questions posed by this element of our culture make the material of this course: What does it mean to own stuff? What do your possessions mean, both to you and about you? How do advertising companies get us to buy products? What influence does advertising have on you, personally? How do we—and should we—cope with the remarkable waste of consumerism? What does “class” mean in U.S. culture—and how does it figure in media imagery? How do advertisers use race and/or racism to sell? And perhaps most importantly, how can we combat the ugliest, most unthinking, portions of consumer culture? Four essays, two with library research required, plus regular informal writing assignments are required.
Instructor: Sara Eddy
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