Below are the Summer 2025 Themes:
| Peter Cibula | WR 139W | Generative AI in the Academy | N/A | The release of ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) in 2022 has had many effects on various sectors of the economy and the academy. While many pieces have been written about the way ChatGPT has changed teaching or writing, this class will take a more skeptical approach. Beginning with the threats and demands made during the 2023 Hollywood writers strike around Generative AI and intellectual property, we will examine the degree to which these technologies can “replace” the work of any given field or discipline. Then, students will examine the conversation around GenAI and LLMs in their own major field of study. Students will consider how these models are being used, studied, or implemented in the work they will soon perform professionally. |
| Ricardo Matthews | WR 139W | Success | Malcolm Gladwell's "Outlier" | Many of us, to use Annette Lareau's term, come from "unequal childhoods" because of race, class and personal family traumas or support. In this class we'l look at success and how it comes about. Because this course covers a variety of majors, you will be able to focus on success from your vantagepoint and field of study. Readings will include Lareau and Malcolm Gladwell's surprising "Outliers." |
| Jungmin Lee | WR 139W | Artificial Intelligence and Humanoid Robots | Not Yet. | Students will explore the technological advancements, examining both the potential benefits and ethical challenges they present. The course will cover key topics such as the development of humanoid robots, AI's role in society, and future expectations and regulations of these technologies. |
| Lynda Haas | WR 40 | The Rhetoric of Superheroes | none | We read, discuss, and write about why the superhero genre has been the most popular genre with audiences over the past 20 years. |
| Alberto Gullaba | WR 45 | Naturalism, Moral Satire, and Inner-City Fiction | Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. | We'll examine the novel, Last Exit to Brooklyn, through the prism of competing genres, Naturalism and Moral Satire. |
| Yolanda Venegas | WR 45 | Personal Writing for Social Change | Free PDF files | In this section of WR45/50 we will focus on personal essays and more specifically, personal essays that work towards personal and social transformation—a genre of writing that Gloria Anzaldúa called Autohistorías. We will read personal essays by Gloria Anzaldúa, M. Scott Momaday, James Baldwin, Richard Rodriguez, and notice how they mine their life-stories and draw from their imaginations to write autohistorías that addressed the complexities of race, class, genders, sexualities, immigration etc. and how they take from complex histories to interpret and write their life stories. |
| Daniela R. Chavez | WR 45 | Autoethnography | AGWR | We will learn about the genre of autoethnography by reading scholarly sources from Carolyn Ellis, Tony Adams and others. With this knowledge we will analyze a published example in our first assignment. Then we will write about a chosen subculture with which we have affiliation for our second assignment. If you want to engage in personal writing and deep reflection, this is the class for you! |
| Emily Wells | WR 50 | Satire (Woolf's Orlando) | Orlando by Virginia Woolf | Our class will examine Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography as our primary text to understand how genre functions and allows Woolf to transcend the limitations of her era. In our course, we will examine the ways Woolf satirizes the style of a classic biography giving her audience a story that is fantastical rather than historical and factual. We will discuss how Woolf contributes to revolutionizing the fantasy genre and thus expands the possibilities of identity and relationship to time. Orlando’s immortality and gender transformation challenge conventional notions of identity and gender roles and the novel is considered Woolf’s great love letter to the writer Vita Sackville-West, in a time when lesbian affairs were taboo and socially and culturally punished. We will read Woolf closely to identify the ways her stylistic choices aid in her exploration of the fluidity of gender and desire. Through our discussions, we will formulate claims about how Woolf's use of genre facilitates her message and how rhetorical choices allow her to traverse publishers’ censorship and public critique. Throughout the ten weeks, we will come to decide how subversion of genre conventions can provide new futures and better realities for marginalized persons and provide greater possibilities for identity and self. In the midterm paper, you will examine Woolf’s rhetorical choices and the way use or subversion of genre conventions allows her to critique the traditional biography, Victorian social mores, and gender norms, while presenting her readers with more radical possibilities for literature and gender fluidity. In the second half of the course, we will apply what we’ve learned to crafting our own creative and contemporary social critique. |
| Scott Lerner | WR 50 | First and Onlys: The Rhetoric of Firsts, Success, and Wellness | First Gen: A Memoir, by Alejandra Campoverdi |
n this class, we will study the genres writers like Alejandra Campoverdi utilize to shape personal and public understanding of the unique set of “experiences, challenges, and expectations” she and other First and Onlys often encounter, including in higher education. But it’s not only understanding that emerges as a result of writing like Campoverdi’s. As she elucidates in her “anti-memoir,” understanding how we are shaped, and how and what we are shaping, is a fraught, complex, and often circuitous process. This class will lead us into the writing and thinking that informs this conversation and work. |
| Emily Dearborn | WR 50 | Travel Writing | Travel Writing, by Carl Thompson | In this course we will practice critical reading and writing skills by working with the genre of “travel writing.” Texts in this genre are accounts of “real” travel experiences, where the traveler encounters “otherness” – that is, people, cultures, and places different from their own. These texts ask what happens when cultures collide: how do cultures and individuals attempt to understand, explore, control, represent, and/or exploit each other? |
| Hannah Bacchus | WR 50 | Fairy Tales | Anteater's Guide to Writing, 9th ed. (available on Perusall) The Classic Fairy Tales, ed. Maria Tatar (Norton Critical Edition) |
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. |
| Dara Weinberg | WR 60 | What's Wrong With AI: Problems with AI and Automation | Readings will be articles and PDFs provided by the instructor. | This course does not doubt that generative AI is here to stay, and neither does it question the utility (the usefulness, the value) of generative AI to our world. Anyone who questions the beneficial and transformative effects which generative AI may have upon our world has only to read this article about AI's role in deciphering elephant utterances and learning that "every elephant has its own nameLinks to an external site.." A technology which can help us to understand the language of sentient, intelligent megafauna must be developed and utilized to its fullest extent. Once again, this course does not doubt AI's value to humanity. Rather, it asks us to be intelligent, informed, and skeptical users of AI products. In order to make our informed use of these technologies possible, we must fully understand the negative side effects of these technologies, in detail and with precision. To this end, in this course, you will not focus on AI's benefits and possibilities, which are many. Rather, you will be tasked with examining what is problematic about it. In particular, you will consider how these developing technologies (generative AI, LLMs, and automation) are affecting our society through three lenses. You will choose one of these as your over-arching theme in Week 1 and write about it all quarter long. Within this theme, you may explore many different elements to consider, depending upon what interests you the most. (1) Race, racism, discrimination, bias, and AI "hallucinations"Links to an external site.; This topic also includes bias against gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual expression, political affiliation, religion, culture, etc. (2) Labor, work and the exploitation of workers, particularly but not only minimum-wage, undocumented, or otherwise unprotected or un-unionized workers; (3) Writing, creativity and intellectual property, including the misuse and/or uncredited use of IP; also the problem with plagiarism and the academy, and with the stylistic kludge of AI-generated "slop"Links to an external site. flooding the Internet. |
| Victoria Perez | WR 60 | Immigration | AGWR, all other texts are provided through Canvas | This course pursues an institutional critique of immigration enforcement, asking how and why it has changed, in what ways it has negatively impacted communities, and who has stood to benefit. Students can pursue a range of research projects related to problems in immigration courts and due process violations, the mass incarceration of immigrants and the connections between immigration and criminal law enforcement, and harms suffered by asylum seekers, immigrant laborers, undocumented youths, and other groups affected by an expanded set of laws dictating as criminal the everyday activities of undocumented migrants. |
| Brian J. Flores | WR 60 | Video Games, Technology, and Digital Spaces | N/A | In this course you will read about, discuss, and investigate various ways in which video games, technology, and digital spaces impact and affect culture and society in the U.S. You will also engage in research to help you understanding the ways in which they impact current and historical debates. |
| William Eng | WR 60 | The 1619 Project | The 1619 Project (Available Online and Canvas without Purchase) | By looking at the history of the US through racial, religious, gendered policies and international laws & policies that shape our current state of institutionalized societal problems we can understand how advocates aim to fix them. From how the music industry gate keeps artists to how gender has shaped the current gaming industry to how native Americans across both continents fight for climate justice, students can choose their own specific problem to contextualize and advocate for. |
| Glaydah Namukasa | WR 60 | Medical Humanities | The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot | Medical Humanities is an interdisciplinary field that explores the human aspects of medicine and healthcare by integrating perspectives from the arts, humanities, and social sciences. It includes disciplines such as arts, literature, culture, psychology, anthropology, history, etc) social sciences (psychology, sociology, cultural studies, etc) and the arts (theatre, film, visual arts, etc) and how all these relate with illness, health, healthcare, and the body. You DO NOT need to have prior knowledge of the theme to take the class. |
| Candice Yacono | WR 60 | Medical Humanities | The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks | Same as previous quarters |
| Vincent Hiscock | WR 60 | Suburbia & its Discontents | all provided on Canvas | In our section of Writing 60, we will use a selection of texts about social issues that are specifically related to forms of suburban development and suburban culture as the foundation for our classroom discussions and as a frame for our individual research topics. This topic carries special meaning for us, as students at UC Irvine and residents of Orange County and surrounding areas, because Southern California, in particular, has been the historical epicenter of various forms of suburban development that now dominate the US landscape more largely. Through introduction to the overlapping approaches of political geography, urban studies, US studies, and ethnography, we will gain insight into the inter-connectedness of issues of housing and (sub)urban design, economic inequality, environmental destruction, and cultural exclusion, fear, and racism. |
| Librecht Baker | WR 60 | "Technology and bias" within a Black Lives Matter context. | AGWR & Ruja Benjamin's Race After Technology | "Technology and bias" within a Black Lives Matter context |
| Ashby Mei-Ling Baker | WR 60 | Medical Humanities | The Anteater's Guide to Writing and Rhetoric, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot | The story of Henrietta Lacks brings up troubling questions of medicine, ethics, race, genetics, medical testing, and scientific research (to name a few). The kinds of research questions you will tackle in this class need not adhere closely to the book, though what you select will likely be inspired by the issues we read. Who has the rights to our bodies, our genetic material, our medical records? Should one be able to seek remuneration from our genetic material, and how? What kinds of restrictions should be put on medical or genetic testing, if any? Where do scientific advancement and personal freedoms/privacy come into conflict, and how can each be protected? Who is harmed and who is participating in that harm? |
| Laurence Hall | WR 60 | Reproductive Rights: Post- Dobbs | Anteater Guide | The theme for this writing seminar will center on reproductive rights post-Dobbs. |
| Noelle Viger | WR 60 | Elections and Democracy in the United States | n/a | We will be examining issues related to elections in the United States. We will spend time thinking about how democracy functions, how it is designed to work in the U.S., and how these intentions can be seen in systemic issues that have been appearing in different election cycles in the last 40 years. |
| Matt Goldman | WR 60 | Mass Incarceration in America | American Prison by Shane Bauer but a pdf is provided. | This course will investigate the purpose and practice of incarceration in America. We will look at the ways incarceration has been shaped by this country's history as well as how mass incarceration has shaped the present moment. |
| Scott Alexander Streitfeld | WR 60 | Mass Incarceration | Pdf packets on criminal justice issues | The impacts of the last sixty years of mass imprisonment have been devastating for the U.S. Since the 1960s, the number of prisons and prisoners across the country has exploded, and the effects have been most keenly felt by minority populations, in particular, Black Americans. Our section of WR 60 will draw from a collection of texts, both scholarly and non-scholarly, that have defined current efforts to describe, analyze, end mass incarceration in the U.S. This field of study and this archive of research writing will serve as the foundation for our own broad introduction to the topic, from which students will construct individual, specialized research projects. As a class, we will explore the problem of mass human confinement as one entrenched in America's 400-year legacy of racism and discrimination, as well as in the longer history of colonialism and empire-building. We will read work from historians, social scientists, and legal scholars who analyze mass incarceration in relation to questions about race, class, and the enduring legacies of colonialism. We will also read work that confirms or challenges the argument, perhaps most famously articulated by Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow (2010) that mass incarceration, like segregation in the south, was deliberate--a strategic web of policies and practices specifically intended to control and confine black Americans. We will scrutinize these policies and practices within and without the prison walls and examine their long and short term effects on communities and individuals. Finally, we will explore the rate of decline of prison populations in recent years along with new arguments that these numbers are misleading, in part, because the concept of incarceration itself is expanding. |
| Sharece Boghozian | WR 60 | Labor | Temp - Louis Hyman | 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. |
| Dara Weinberg | WR 60 | "Tool or Weapon": What's Wrong with AI? Problems with Generative AI, LLMs, and Automation | Online articles and PDFs only, provided by instructor Anteater's Guide to Writing and Rhetoric, 9th ed., must be purchased online in first week of class |
In this course, you will not focus on AI's benefits and possibilities, which are many. Rather, you will be tasked with examining what is problematic about it. In particular, you will consider how these developing technologies (generative AI, LLMs, and automation) are affecting our society through three lenses. You will choose one of these as your over-arching theme in Week 1 and write about it all quarter long. Within this theme, you may explore many different elements to consider, depending upon what interests you the most. (1) Race, racism, discrimination, bias, and AI "hallucinations"; This topic also includes bias against gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual expression, political affiliation, religion, culture, etc. (2) Labor, work and the exploitation of workers, particularly but not only minimum-wage, undocumented, or otherwise unprotected or un-unionized workers; (3) Writing, creativity and intellectual property, including the misuse and/or uncredited use of IP; also the problem with plagiarism and the academy, and with the stylistic kludge of AI-generated "slop" flooding the Internet. |
| Ricardo Lopez Jr. | WR 60 | Race and Consumer Culture | N/A | This WR60 course will deeply engage with how media constructs notions of racial identity and racialization. We will also consider how race is implicated in media productions ranging from news media to internet content. This will provide us the critical framework for us to engage with the digital-information age of our society and help us think critically about what it means to consume media in the contemporary moment. |