Please find information about Fall 2025 themes below. Make sure to enroll in Composition courses as soon as your enrollment window opens!
| Haley Suh | WR 50 | Detective Fiction: Evidence, Genre, and Suspense | This section of WR50 will explore detective fiction as a genre structured around questions of evidence, interpretation, and proof. Detective stories are often built on the tension between what is seen and what is hidden, what counts as convincing evidence, and how interpretation can lead to truth, or to error. By examining both classic and modern detective short stories, we will consider how the genre trains readers to think about reasoning, suspicion, and the boundaries between fact and narrative. | Short stories from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (All readings will be provided as pdfs on Perusall) |
| R. M. Corbin | WR 60 | Labor & Economy: Temp | This course considers the way people work in the 21st century, the kinds of jobs they do (or don’t do) as well as the wages, benefits, and levels of job security they receive (or don’t receive) for their labor. Much of the discussion focuses on the rise of “gig work” and the “gig economy,” which is to say, the increasing prevalence of work that is temporary, precarious, subcontracted, contingent, casualized. | Hyman, Louis. Temp: The Real Story of What Happened to Your Salary, Benefits, and Job Security. Penguin, 2019. |
| Loren Eason | WR 45 | Science Fiction and Speculative Journalism | In this class we will be reading science fiction short stories, and a couple of articles about what science fiction is and does, and trying to use the articles to take those stories apart to see what ideas about our current world they are exploring, and how we can better understand our world through these alternate versions of reality. Once we have a better understanding of what science fiction does and why it exists, I'll be putting you into groups to produce your own projects (in the form of news articles from the future) which will use the ideas and skills that you have learned in class to ask your own questions about our present way of life and our future so that we can be better prepared to face the coming changes. | Just the AGWR is required. All other texts are free access. |
| Tagert Ellis | WR 45 | Immortality Projects | This course theme invites students to study ideas of human legacy and collective memory, considering how we're remembered after we die, and the ways that humans are attempting keep themselves (or at least their memories) alive for much longer. We also study attempts to communicate across enormous distances of time and space. This description sounds really boring but the course is actually pretty sick. For example, you will learn about a mad scientist who lived in a giant castle and tried to implant monkey parts in people to make them live longer. By the end of the course students will have written poetry that is put on a stone tablet in a salt mine in Austria-- an archive ominously referred to as "MOM." None of these other courses can say that. That salt thing puts them to shame. This description is over. | None— readings provided as PDFs |
| Chasia Jeffries | WR 60 | Criminalizing California | What makes something or someone “criminal”? In our section of Writing 60, examining how certain individuals, communities, and bodies have been marked as 'criminal,' and the impact that criminality has on these populations and society at large. Through the lens of California's criminal justice system, we will focus on how power operates through criminalization to strength social hierarchies and define the boundaries of normal and acceptable behavior. The wide range of current events and communities impacted by criminalization and the diversity of approaches taken in our readings should empower you research and write about issue of importance to you, communicate effectively about contemporary social issues, and persuasively advocate for impacted communities. | All books and materials will be provided as links & PDFs on Canvas. |
| Egor Sofronov | WR 60 | The Death Penalty | This course, in minding its mission to link rhetoric with social relevance, approaches the essential sovereign right of the state as an institution and a legal system: the right to kill, manifested internally as capital punishment. What is capital punishment, and what are the meanings of death penalty? Is it or was it justifiable? Why has it been so necessary — to be almost coextensive with history, society and the rule of law — and is it still? What is abolition? What logics and rhetorical strategies the discourse on the necessity of death penalty and the discourse of abolition obey? | Jacques Derrida. The Death Penalty, Volume II. Seminar 2000–2001 [2015]. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017. 2025 UN report https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2025-09/a-hrc-60-47-aev.pdf Carol Steiker, Jordan Steiker. Courting Death : The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment. Cambridge: Belknap Harvard, 2016. Roger Hood & Carolyn Hoyle, The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective (5e éd., 2015, Oxford) Capital Punishment, Bureau of Justice Statistical Tables for 2023, released 2025 https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/cp23st.pdf Amnesty International brief overview https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/ |
| Alexander Rudenshiold | WR 60 | Labor | This course will investigate the ways that people work and resist exploitation both historically and in the contemporary moment. Students will learn how to write and think critically about their own work contexts, presents, and futures. | I'd want to assign additional articles (1–2 a week), I would not need any additional support for them from composition—I'll provide everything on Canvas. |
| Jennifer Geraci | WR 40 | Autobiographical Narrative | Over the course of the quarter, we will be considering the question “How do writers influence readers?” We will not be able to definitively answer this question — in fact, there is no definitive answer. Rather, reading and analyzing model texts and discussing persuasive techniques that writers use to influence readers will help us identify diverse ways to respond to this difficult question. To help us think about the various ways that writers influence readers, our class will focus primarily on true stories by authors who write about their personal experiences. The authors we will read this quarter use innovative modes of storytelling in order to shape cultural ideas about language acquisition, bilingualism, identity, the importance of family history and how artificial intelligence is changing the ways writers think about influencing their readers. We will also consider the social context of each author’s text, and we will analyze the specific rhetorical choices authors make in order to persuade their readers. Each of the texts we will read this quarter is responding to or redefining how personal stories are traditionally told. We will consider how various authors reject, redefine and innovate ways to tell personal stories. The authors’ personal — yet politically-minded — approaches to storytelling show readers how individual experiences can contribute to a more collective understanding of our culture. |
Course texts will be provided on Perusall. |
| Na'amit Sturm Nagel | WR 50 | Fairy Tales | Yes, Tatar's "The Classic Fairy Tales" | |
| Hannah Bacchus | WR 50 | Fairy Tales | In this section of WR 50, we will explore what fairy tales are, how they work, and why they are so durably meaningful across different cultures. Fairy tales (or “wonder tales”) make up an ubiquitous genre—every society on earth tells fairy tales to adults and children alike. Unlike myths, fairy tales do not narrate the creation and ending of the world, nor the capricious deeds of the gods; and unlike legends, they do not focus on culture heroes like Robin Hood or the Monkey King. Instead they are stories of strange marvels that distill our primal fears and desires into hope that virtue can triumph over evil and that clever people can achieve the good life. Fairy tales center on anonymous character types who endure extraordinary ordeals reflecting the realities of life in specific times and places. They are versatile stories that play with us, creep us out, and enlighten us all at once. Our exploration of the fairy tale genre will center on a few of the most popular tale types: Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Bluebeard. Each week, we’ll read different versions of the same tale originating not just from Europe, but also Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Through our comparisons of these different versions of the tales, and of the tale types themselves, we will examine how different groups of people living in different cultural and historical contexts approach a set of related themes, motifs, and conventions: true love, the pleasures and dangers of emergent sexuality, righteous violence, curiosity and obedience, benevolent and wicked parents, and family life. In the second half of the course, we’ll look at Disney’s adaptations and remakes of fairy tales, and consider what it means for corporations to assume ownership over what was formerly common (shared, public) intellectual property. Along the way, we will also read classic fairy tale/folklore scholarship, view fairy tale art from the Golden Age of Illustration, and watch fairy tale films and other media. | The Anteater's Guide to Writing & Rhetoric (10th Ed.) |
| Chen Gu | WR 60 | Mass Incarceration | This course focuses on prison reform and abolition in the U.S., as well as the individuals and families impacted by mass incarceration, through the rhetoric used to perpetuate existing structures and imagine alternative futures. This can include the language expected in parole board hearings, fundraising open letters written by people whose loved ones are incarcerated, and audio-visual documentations of a family's life as they are touched by decades of someone being on the inside. We will read Angela Davis' "Are Prisons Obsolete?" as a core text, which will be supplemented by news articles, blog posts, and book and film excerpts such as Garrett Bradley's "Time". The goal is to question the prison both as a physical site (if its goal is to reduce crime, does it work? What is the actual goal of a prison?) and as a mental construct (what are the ways in which popular media, such as shows like "Orange is the New Black", serve to reinforce a prison's utility?). Ultimately, we will examine the boundaries and possibilities of storytelling in reproducing harm or seeding a more equitable society. | "Are Prisons Obsolete?" by Angela Davis |
| Scott Lerner | WR 45 | First Gen: First and Onlys, Success, and Wellbeing | First Gen, by Alejandra Campoverdi | |
| Alex Bernstein | WR 60 | Rhetorics of Personhood: Bodies, Corporations, and Rivers | Throughout this course, we will explore how, recently, the Supreme Court has grappled with difficult questions related to constitutional, corporate, and nonhuman personhood. You will read legal and critical theory to learn how the Court’s legitimacy is more tenuous than it appears, as it continues to undermine the rights of personhood by excluding or erasing marginalized identities. You will think about personhood in the context of the Trump Administration, which seeks to challenge the constitutional provision of birthright citizenship, to erode reproductive rights, and to eliminate affirmative action. Then you will extend this framework of negligibility to other contemporary issues that push the limits of what it means to be a person, both as an autonomous body (human) and as an abstract, incorporated entity made up of multiple relations and parts (non-human). The major themes and research directions available to you—constitutional personhood, corporate personhood, and non-human personhood—embody salient tensions that center on schisms between the Court and the People. For instance, in identifying a research topic, you might look at current voter suppression laws or redistricting controversies through the lens of the most recent Court hearing on birthright citizenshipLinks to an external site.. Or you might look at the Dred Scott decision in relation to contemporary policies and laws that disproportionately criminalize Black Americans, such as stop-and-friskLinks to an external site.. Similarly, you might assess legal efforts in the U.S. to extend personhood to mountains and riversLinks to an external site., asking how Indigenous frameworks and constitutional law might interact. Or you might look at how terms like “person,” “citizen,” or “subject” operate rhetorically in Court opinions to include or exclude bodies from legal protection. In all such cases, you will identify rhetorical situations and intricate argumentative strategies that emanate from the contested rights of legal personhood in the United States, where debates about who has them and what it means to be a person continues to evolve in new and unpredictable directions as scholars, lawyers, judges, philosophers, and activists examine the limits and the limitlessness of the Court. This rhetoric and research seminar engages many of them through various types of scholarly genres for course readings and research projects, including legal scholarship, legislative histories, journalistic accounts, critical essays, websites, and historical analyses. | Jonathon J. Booth, The Cycle of Delegitimization: Lessons From Dred Scott on the Relationship Between the Supreme Court and the Nation, 51 Hastings Const. L.Q. 5 (2024). Robinson, Zoe. "Constitutional Personhood." 84 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 605, 667 (2016). Kirsch, Stuart. “Imagining Corporate Personhood.” Political and legal anthropology review : PoLAR. 37.2 (2014): 207–217. Stone, Christopher D. “Should Trees Have Standing?–Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects.” Southern California Law Review 45 (1972): 450-501. |
| Melissa Stevens | WR 60 | WR 60 Argument & Research: Disability Access. This course has never been taught, but I believe Professor Queen has approved it. |
WR 60 Argument & Research: Disability Access analyzes how disability is defined, represented, regulated, and resisted in various contexts—including employment, education, transportation, media, product design, healthcare, and architecture—and examines how these forces, alongside society’s attitudes and systems, impact the lives of people with disabilities. Students will study the history, context, and content of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a foundational civil rights law passed in 1990 to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities. We will learn why some people prefer ‘person-first language’ (e.g., person with a disability) while others prefer ‘identity-first language’ (e.g., disabled person). The course investigates access to public and private spaces for people with visible (e.g., wheelchair users, people with Down syndrome) and invisible disabilities (e.g., chronic illness, mental health conditions), noting ADA successes, gaps, and ongoing calls for revision. | There is no core textbook in addition to the AGWR. All readings will be uploaded onto Canvas. |
| Sarah Hanson-Kegerreis | WR 45 | Defining the Human in Science Fiction | This section of WR 45, "Defining the Human in Science Fiction," will explore science fiction (SF) as a genre dedicated to “what if?” propositions that examine the nature of humanity and human society. We'll examine a variety of sci-fi short stories, including works by Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, and Wole Talabi. Science Fiction is a genre most commonly associated with aliens, space travel, future worlds, and advanced technology; however, this class will focus on how SF uses tropes of the other or the alien to define the human and visions of a futuristic unknown to comment on the society in which the creator and their audience live. As SF author Ursula K. Le Guin argued, “Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.” | All other materials will be provided via Canvas. |
| Chenglin Lee | WR 50 | Immigrant/Refugee Literature | Using Thi Bui's The Best We Could Do as the main text focusing on literature from immigrants as well as graphic novels to understand genre and common themes of immigrant narratives. | Thi Bui's The Best We Could Do, graphic novel |
| Maya Bornstein | WR 50 | Utopias | This course will explore speculative works with a particular emphasis on utopian thinking and world-building. | We will read and watch a variety of texts that engage with imagining utopian futures, sometimes following and sometimes blurring the traditional boundaries between major speculative genres like fantasy, sci-fi, alternate history, horror, etc. |
| isabel mesko | WR 60 | Immigration | preexisting syllabus | |
| Chelsea Lee | WR 50 | Fairy Tales | In this section of WR 50, we will explore what fairy tales are, how they work, and why they are so durably meaningful across different cultures. By reading different tales from different cultural traditions and time periods, we will construct a sense of why these story are so often adapted. This trajectory will culminate in a consideration of adaptation and why re-telling tales is integral to our cultural identities. | Maria Tatar (editor), The Classic Fairy Tales, 2nd Edition |
| Haley Suh | WR 50 | Detective Fiction: Evidence, Genre, and Suspense | This section of WR50 explores detective fiction under the subtitle "Evidence, Genre, and Suspense." In detective fiction, small details matter. What looks ordinary may become evidence, and the way we read those details -- shaped by the genre's rules -- can lead us toward truth or into error. We will investigate how three key aspects of the genre shape our reading: how ordinary details are transformed into "evidence," how the rules and patterns we expect from detective fiction guide both detectives and readers in interpreting those details, and how stories model the act of reading itself. Detective fiction gives us a unique lens for asking these questions because it is always about evidence and interpretation: what counts as (reliable or unreliable) proof, how we decide what is believable, and how narratives train us to read for meaning. In the first half of the quarter, we will focus on early detective stories by writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, credited with codifying the genre's rules of reasoning and habits of reading evidence. Later in the quarter, we will broaden our scope to modern texts and adaptations, considering how detective fiction continues to evolve, parody itself, or even refuse solutions, and what those shifts reveal about cultural anxieties around truth and evidence. Two major assignments will anchor the course. The Genre Analysis (GA) will ask you to develop a thesis-driven interpretation of the two Sherlock Holmes stories grounded in close reading and supported by secondary sources. The Imitation Project (IP) will challenge you to reimagine the conventions of detective fiction in a multimodal format. You may parody or subvert the genre's rules, using either audio or visual/archival forms. By the end of the course, you will not only have sharpened your critical reading and writing skills but also considered how evidence, genre, and suspense together shape what detective fiction makes possible as both a genre practice and a cultural form. |
All texts will be provided as PDF. |