CALDERWOOD SEMINARS

The Calderwood Seminars are intended primarily for junior and senior majors in the field (or in some cases affiliated fields--check with the faculty member if you are unsure). They are designed to help students think about how to translate their discipline (e.g. art history, biology, literature) to non-specialists through different forms of public writing. Depending on the major, public writing might include policy papers, book reviews, blog posts, exhibition catalog entries, grant reports, or editorials. Students will be expected to write or edit one short piece of writing per week.

 

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LIT 344      Calderwood Seminar: Literature Live! Writing about Contemporary American Literature

Joseph Luzzi

W        10:10 am-12:30 pm

OLIN 101

LA

ELIT

 Who are the writers that are changing the culture in the U.S. today? Students in this Calderwood Seminar will develop the tools to write about contemporary American literature in the style of the “public intellectual,” the critic or commentator who can communicate complex ideas with style and clarity, and as part of a broader cultural conversation. Assignments will include book reviews in the style of the New Yorker and New York Review of Books, a profile of an author, and studies of contemporary American readership and literary culture. Students will maintain a weekly blog that will serve as both a record of their engagement with the course material and an archive for their work. Authors we will discuss are likely to include Ben Lerner, Jhumpa Lahiri, Claudia Rankine, Leslie Jamison, Gary Shteyngart, and many others. Weekly meetings will include discussion of the particular book or work under review; workshops of student work; and analysis of individual authors as well as consideration of the broad cultural trends related to the reception of their work. The Calderwood Seminars are writing-intensive classes designed to help students think about how to translate their discipline (in this case, literature) to non-specialists through different forms of public writing. Students will be expected to write or edit one short piece of writing per week.

Class size: 12

 

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EUS 328      Calderwood Seminar: Environmental Futures and the Global Climate Crisis

Michele Dominy

Th      10:10 am-12:30 pm

HEG 300

SA

Cross-listed: Science, Technology, Society

Glacial melt. Tropical deforestation. Sea-level rise. Desertification. Ocean acidification. How will these processes determine our environmental futures? Can we respond to the increasing threat of a sixth extinction? What are the elements of the sustainability revolution? Each student in this Calderwood Seminar will select a critical environmental issue related to human-induced global climate change and follow it as their investigative “beat” for the term. Drawing upon their past studies, students will read scientific articles on their topic, engaging in its scientific, social, ethical, and policy aspects, while also considering related articles in publications such as The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books. Through six short varied written assignments, students will hone their analytic and writing and editing skills for cogency and elegant expression as “public” writers, collaborating in and modeling effective environmental communication as an instrument for climate action. The focus of the seminar is on student writing, peer review and editing with required weekly assignment deadlines. Prerequisite: junior or senior standing or permission of the instructor. Calderwood seminars are intended primarily for junior and senior majors in the field or in affiliated fields. They are designed to help students think about how to translate their discipline or interdisciplinary training to non-specialists through different forms of public writing. Depending on the major, public writing (usually 800-1500 words in length) might include policy papers, book reviews, interviews with professionals, TED talks or an academic minute, grant reports, and editorials. Students will write or edit one short piece of writing each week.

Class size: 12

 

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ARTH 314      Calderwood Seminar: Public Writing and the Built Environment

Olga Touloumi

Th       3:10 pm-5:30 pm

FISHER ANNEX

AA D+J

Cross-listed: Environmental & Urban Studies; Experimental Humanities; Human Rights This course introduces students to issues concerning architecture, the built environment, and spatial justice through forms of public writing. In collaboration with the instructor, each student will focus on one area or issue such as the prison- industrial complex (as found, for example, at Rikers Island), gentrification in Newburgh, housing inequality in Chicago, the water crisis in Flint, management of nuclear waste in the Hudson, shrinking cities in the Rust Belt, and oil pipeline infrastructure on tribal lands. To mobilize interested publics and address officials, students will use Twitter; design petitions; write blog entries; interview stakeholders; write protest letters; and prepare for a public hearing. The goal will be to inform the public, raise awareness, and reclaim agency over the design and planning of our environments through writing. Combining texts from the various assignments, students will produce a final thirty-minute podcast that will live online. (Fulfills two program requirements: Modern / Europe + US)

Class size: 12