Fall 2008 Writing Seminars

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 primarily around readings, Writing Seminars are organized primarily around writing—specifically, several major 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 you read, please keep in mind that, despite the differences in intellectual content, each Writing Seminar is principally a course in academic writing.

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. To identify your top choices, read on! This page lists Writing Seminars by title, time, and description to help you find the ones that interest you most and fit your schedule best. To increase your chances of being assigned to one of your 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 when choosing seminars.

Writing Seminars by Title
(You will receive classroom information when you’re notified of your seminar.)

Monday/Wednesday Writing Seminars by Time
(You will receive classroom information when you’re notified of your seminar.)

Tuesday/Thursday Writing Seminars by Time
(You will receive classroom information when you’re notified of your seminar.)

Writing Seminar Descriptions

Giddy flappers, raucous jazz, and the Model-T Ford are all familiar icons of the Roaring Twenties, and to this day the period retains its status as the crucible of modern America. Yet the era that saw a boom in technology and new rights for women was also a reactionary time of immigration restriction, Jim Crow segregation, and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan—events that both resisted and reflected forward-looking impulses of the age. In this Writing Seminar, we analyze the decade’s major social and cultural developments, asking what makes the Twenties still appear “modern” eighty years later. We begin by investigating the emerging promises of consumer culture in contemporary advertisements, film, and nonfiction, including Bruce Barton’s attempt to link Christianity to the ethos of American business in The Man Nobody Knows. Next, we study Frederick Taylor’s theory of scientific management and the sociology classic Middletown, analyzing the ways in which the era’s promises relied on new methods of ordering human experience. Students then research a particular Twenties trend, movement, or controversy, examining how it reflects the nature of change in this tumultuous decade. Finally, we write book reviews of a work encountered during the research process.

The American Dream is traditionally defined as the achievement of social status and material comfort—aspirations seemingly in conflict with other quintessentially American values, such as family loyalty, charity, and social equality. Can the desire for personal success and unimaginable riches coexist with the impulse to help others? To what extent are the more selfish aspects of the Dream compatible with citizenship in a democracy? In this Writing Seminar, we explore the ways in which writers and filmmakers have portrayed and tried to resolve the inner conflicts of the American Dream. We begin by using The Great Gatsby as a test case for refining theories of the Dream, including Martin Luther King, Jr.’s rousing vision of freedom and justice for all. We then consider the problems and perils of unlimited personal freedom as depicted in the 1999 Academy Award-winning film American Beauty. For the research paper, students investigate the American Dream in a novel or film of their choice. Possibilities include Their Eyes Were Watching God, American Pastoral, Hoop Dreams, and Little Miss Sunshine. We conclude by analyzing a piece of contemporary popular culture—an advertisement, song, television show, or video game—to reveal the workings of the Dream today.

In December 1911, Norwegian explorer Raold Amundsen and his party became the first humans to reach the South Pole. Their main rivals, Robert Scott and his five men, reached the Pole a month later, but perished in the ice on their way back. Today, as over 4,000 scientists from around the world conduct ongoing experiments there and nations compete for the continent’s resources, Antarctica remains a place of fascination and intense debate. What drives this continued interest in the large and forbidding landmass, where temperatures can drop to 130 degrees below zero? Why are people drawn to Antarctica’s promise of bitter cold, months of complete darkness, mortal dangers, and seeming blankness? In this Writing Seminar, we examine the intersection of imagination and scientific fact that shapes our understanding of what many consider the last wilderness on earth. We’re aided in our exploration by the narratives of Scott, Amundsen, and Shackleton; essays by nature writer Annie Dillard; science and policy writing; and photography, film, and other media. In the second half of the course, students conduct their own research on some aspect of Antarctica and recommend a course of action for the future of this geographical reality and cultural idea.

While it’s easy to assume that obsession with sex is a recent development in human history, gadgets and potions designed to enhance the human sexual experience are not new phenomena: Lydia Pinkham’s vegetable compound, first marketed in 1875, claimed to increase fertility and cure sexual ills, and cultures have created charms and figures to enhance sexual performance for millennia. In this Writing Seminar, we explore how sex, sexuality, and gender are negotiated through material culture and are expressed in both private and public forums today. What can we learn about our ancestors’ intimate practices from the objects they fashioned and the spaces they built? How can we infer the sexual identities of people who left no written records? We address these questions by examining concrete evidence of human sexuality: the Venus figurines from prehistoric Europe; the physical space of a nineteenth-century Washington, D.C., brothel; and the sexual or gender significance of a category of artifacts, such as medical instruments and household tools. Readings are primarily from Robert Schmidt and Barbara Voss’s Archaeologies of Sexuality, and include such chapters as “Mary Ann Hall’s First-Class House: The Archaeology of a Capital Brothel” and “A Precolumbian Gaze: Male Sexuality among the Ancient Maya.”

Between 1607 and 1690, a new society emerged in the Chesapeake Bay as British subjects in colonial Maryland and Virginia tried to reconstruct familiar social and political institutions. But while a shared culture, the ties of religion and family, and the demands of frontier life helped settlers create new and stable communities, a rising tide of economic inequality and tension between workers and employers threatened to pull this fragile society apart. How did Chesapeake settlers maintain peace and stability in this unstable environment? In what ways did religion, race, and class difference both forge and challenge social order? In this Writing Seminar, students analyze letters, court records, literature, political pamphlets, maps, and other primary documents from colonial Chesapeake, seeking to understand how seventeenth-century people dealt with discontent and conflict. Assignments include an interpretation of the anonymous anti-Catholic screed “A Complaint from Heaven,” a rhetorical assault on the colonial proprietor of Maryland; an analysis of slavery in Virginia based on documentary evidence from the 1600s, such as court records and petitions; a research paper on one of the Chesapeake’s many episodes of social or political conflict; and an imaginative response to the notorious murder of a royal tax official in Maryland.

Many theorists argue that active citizen participation is essential for a healthy democracy. But how much should citizens influence the process of government? What is the relationship between civic associations, such as rotary clubs and the P.T.A., and more direct forms of activism, such as voting and campaigning? The answers to these questions have changed dramatically over the course of the twentieth century, and contemporary thinkers continue to debate the future of civic engagement. In this Writing Seminar, we explore the contested meaning of citizenship in recent U.S. history. We begin by examining political commentator Walter Lippmann’s famous 1927 critique of the ideal of a democratic public and philosopher John Dewey’s response that defended the potential of informed public participation. We then investigate historical analyses of the role of economic change, specifically the rise of mass consumption, in shaping the mid-century transformation of popular political activism. For the research project, students consider contemporary social scientific debates regarding recent declining participation in civic associations. We end by writing book reviews of one of the course’s assigned texts, which include Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, Theda Skocpol’s Diminished Democracy, Meg Jacobs’s Pocketbook Politics, and Lizabeth Cohen’s A Consumer’s Republic.

Postwar America was a suspicious place. During the presidential elections of 1964, Richard Nixon reflected the paranoid climate of the period when he declared:  “The Cold War isn’t thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn’t sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.”  In this Writing Seminar, we investigate American culture during the Cold War, a fifty-year face-off between two superpowers that was often characterized by binary oppositions: capitalism versus communism, good versus evil, us versus them. We begin by examining how national unity was imagined in key political speeches and studies of the late 1940s and 50s, including writings by George Kennan, who inspired the U.S. foreign policy of Soviet “containment.”  We then use historical accounts of the Red Scare and nuclear arms race to reinterpret Stanley Kubrick’s famous satire of anti-communism, Dr. Strangelove.  Students next choose a creative work from the era and situate it in the culture of the Cold War. Among the many possibilities are the 1950s television hit I Love Lucy, Joan Didion’s essay collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and Jasper Johns’s Flag paintings. We conclude by reflecting on the persistence of Cold War narratives in accounts of the present-day “War on Terror.”

The opulence of color experience seems undeniable. The French painter Fernand Léger went even further when he wrote, “Color is a vital necessity. It is raw material indispensable for life, like water and fire.” While the experience of color has often been appreciated as a wonderful dimension of the fully lived life, its status among the higher intellectual concerns is less secure, in part because body experience in general is undervalued in Western culture. In this Writing Seminar, we explore color as a legitimate site for human knowledge and meaning. We’re aided by Goethe, whose groundbreaking Theory of Colours (1810) influenced philosophers and physicists alike, and by several commentators on color blindness and “chromophobia,” including neurologist Oliver Sacks and fantasists such as H.G. Wells and Italo Calvino. In addition, we consider how the meaning of color has been racially inscribed, using as test cases novelist Nella Larsen’s Passing, about a woman of color who passes as white, and contemporary artist Kara Walker’s astonishing silhouette art installations. We also view works by color pioneers like Wassily Kandinsky and Mark Rothko, and we perform active color experiments ourselves, using Josef Albers’s treasury of color problems, Interaction of Color, as our guide.

Factual writing, also known as literary journalism and creative nonfiction, has flourished in recent decades, covering all kinds of subjects, from deeply personal experiences to timely political and cultural issues. In this Writing Seminar, we read some of the nation’s most prominent contemporary writers and journalists. We analyze the challenges they faced and the narrative choices they made in representing diverse, complex, and often volatile subjects to wide-ranging audiences. Texts range from serious to light-hearted: Larry L. King and Geoffrey Wolff on growing up; Richard Gilman on faith, sex, and mystery; John Noble Wilford on space exploration; Nancy Gibbs and Ronald Steel on terrorism; David Shipler and Isabel Wilkerson on race; and Gina Kolata on cloning. All of the authors have taught at Princeton as Ferris/McGraw Professors of Writing and have contributed favorite pieces to The Princeton Anthology of Writing, our central text. These varied and compelling articles serve as models for our own writing, including a research project for which students choose their own topics, and a position paper in which students write persuasive essays to effect change in the world around them. John McPhee, New Yorker writer, and other journalists will visit the class.

We typically think of the human body in biological terms, as a living organism consisting of tissues and cells. But the body also shapes and is shaped by powerful cultural forces: healing practices, from hypnosis and leeching to surgery and prayer; body modification, such as piercing, tattooing, plastic surgery, and weight loss; and legal prohibitions around reproduction and sexual behavior. To what extent is the human body affected by cultural norms and beliefs, and vice versa? In this Writing Seminar, we consider the human body in cultural context—specifically, how the body is understood in terms of diverse economic values, ideas of beauty, political struggles, and personal identities. We begin with an examination of organ trafficking, through which body parts become commodities that are bought and sold in a global market. We then use Michel Foucault’s theories on “biopower”—how modern states exert power over the human body—to examine overlooked political aspects of psychological trauma and mental illness. In the second half of the semester, students conduct research on a body-related practice, analyzing its cultural significance. Possible topics include scarification, acupuncture, anti-depressants, and placebos. Finally, we explore what contemporary advertisements for medications reveal about prevailing understandings of the body.

World War Two was the dominating event of the twentieth century; its major battles, famous generals, and horrifying statistics are a part of our common knowledge. Yet historians continue to disagree about many of the war’s fundamental questions, from the experiences of individuals at the sharp end of combat to the affairs of great statesmen. Was wartime foreign policy and military strategy well conceived or imprudent? Did the mobilization of the home front ignite social changes or merely confirm old barriers of race, class, and gender? In this Writing Seminar, we enter some of the ongoing debates about how to understand the Second World War. We begin by analyzing E. B. Sledge’s extraordinary memoir With the Old Breed, the tale of one American teenager thrown headlong into the hell of the Battle of Peleliu. Next, we look at images from popular wartime magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post and Harper’s Magazine, to consider how gender was depicted on the home front. Later, students research and intercede in a debate among historians about the war. We conclude by either creating mock wartime propaganda posters or writing op-ed pieces in the style of The New York Times on the war’s legacy today.

Most would agree that experiences of beauty—looking at Michelangelo’s “David,” listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, reading a poem by Emily Dickinson—enrich and deepen our lives. Yet from Plato onwards, Western philosophers have often regarded the experience of beauty as dangerous and manipulative. In this Writing Seminar, we examine the nature of beauty, questioning the way it affects us as viewers, listeners, readers, consumers, and even citizens. We begin by reading classic and recent writers on aesthetics whose ideas provide a context for examining works by painters Ad Reinhardt and Norman Rockwell and sculptor Damien Hirst, among others. Next, students test out Elaine Scarry’s theory that beauty leads to social fairness and justice by analyzing an object of beauty of their own choosing and making an argument about its political effects. Possible topics include Kara Walker’s silhouettes, Karl Lagerfeld’s couture, and the landscape of Central Park. For the research paper, we draw on critiques of art by philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Theodor Adorno, questioning troubling aspects of beauty in artworks from the Princeton University Art Museum. Finally, students write op-ed pieces on beauty in the news, from public arts funding to unattainable standards of physical beauty for models.

In 2012, the year you graduate from Princeton, there will be 7.2 billion people in the world, up from 5.2 billion the year you were born. How will we feed everyone? Although the “Green Revolution” of the 1960s helped avert famine and substantially increased crop productivity, today approximately one out of every seven people in the world is undernourished. Proponents of the current “Gene Revolution” believe that the biotechnology used to create genetically modified (GM) crops, such as corn, soybean, and rice, can help feed and nourish the world. Yet many, including consumer rights groups and organic farmers, have denounced GM foods as “Frankenfoods” that may pose long-term health and environmental risks. In this Writing Seminar, we contemplate the future of food while exploring the scientific, bioethical, cultural, and political dimensions of the complex debate over GM foods and the other agricultural alternative: organic foods. Can GM and organic foods feed and nourish the hungry and create a sustainable agricultural system? Drawing on readings from Prince Charles, Richard Dawkins, Norman Borlaug, Michael Pollan, and others, as well as documentaries such as Harvest of Fear, we develop ideas for how we might successfully feed 7.2 billion people—and counting.

Comic books and newspaper “funnies” have been light and entertaining products of American popular culture since the 1930s. In recent years, however, these unassuming genres have evolved into the new form of “graphic novels,” complex narratives made of text and image that often engage with complex personal, social, and political issues. In this Writing Seminar, we explore how effective the graphic novel is at responding to cultural and historical crises, seeking to understand how such narratives tell stories traditionally reserved for “serious” literature. We begin by examining Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, an autobiographical account of the Iranian revolution, in relation to Scott McCloud’s seminal Understanding Comics, considering the relationship between the comic book as a genre and Satrapi’s explosive subject. Next, we analyze the writing and cultural reception of Art Spiegelman’s Maus, a survivor’s account of the Holocaust told using mice, cats, and pigs as stock characters. For the research project, students write on a graphic novel of their own choosing, expanding on an issue relevant to the genre at large. Possible texts include Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, David B.’s Epileptic, and Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta. We conclude by producing our own short graphic narratives.

The purpose of terrorism is to frighten, but also to provoke: terrorists seek to undermine stable democratic governments by goading them into actions that contradict the basic human rights upon which they are founded. In this Writing Seminar, we investigate the challenge that democracies face—of ensuring security without eroding freedom. How well have the U.S. and others fared in their responses to terrorism? We begin with an assessment of whether various political movements should be classified as terrorist organizations by examining the methods they use to advance their agendas. The acclaimed film The Battle of Algiers, a harrowing account of the Algerian war for independence, will ground our definition of “terrorism.” Next, students articulate an appropriate standard of behavior for democracies faced with terrorism. We explore several theorists in this debate, most notably Michael Ignatieff, who advocates sacrificing certain rights to protect the more valuable institutions of liberty and democracy. Students then conduct research on the U.S. “War on Terror” to assess the soundness of controversial counterterrorist measures, including “extraordinary rendition” and “highly coercive interrogations.” Finally, students write an op-ed piece in response to the central question of the course: Are human rights safe in an age of terror?

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 examining two seventeenth-century witchcraft trials, using these records to refine the theory of philosopher Michel Foucault, who has posited 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 trial records, criminal codes, gallows speeches, an executioner’s diary, and images of torture and public punishment. We conclude by critically reviewing modern historians’ accounts of the Inquisition.

“Jazz,” pianist Billy Taylor pronounced, “is America’s classical music.” While this statement suggests that jazz is rooted in tradition, the tendency to embrace historical practice is, in fact, often in tension with the improviser’s drive to redefine the boundaries of the form. In this Writing Seminar, we study this opposition as we explore how jazz and other improvised musical forms are shaped by complex cultural, political, and social dynamics. Throughout the semester, we seek to clarify and complicate the theories of Theodor Adorno, Ralph Ellison, and Stanley Crouch through “close listening” to the improvisation of pivotal jazz figures such as Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis. We also examine controversies about race, cultural ownership, and “selling-out” implicit in the labels affixed to various styles of jazz performance, such as West Coast, Bebop, Free, Smooth, and even Jazz itself. Students also have the opportunity to conduct original research on a controversy in jazz (or other improvised music) and explore the relationship between culture and music in twentieth-century America. Finally, we review a live performance, testing how what we’ve learned about improvisation complicates Duke Ellington’s remark that “there are two kinds of music: good and bad.”

Modern liberalism—arguably the dominant political philosophy of the West—is founded upon familiar notions of liberty, equality, and rights. But such liberal ideals are contested by many liberals and their critics, and questions abound: What does it really mean to be free? Can groups have rights, or just individuals? Does equality mean the equality of opportunity or the equality of resources? And is there any conflict between liberty and equality? In this Writing Seminar, we explore these questions, seeking to understand both the foundations of modern liberalism and some recent criticisms of it. We begin by examining the work of John Rawls, one of the most prominent liberal philosophers, to develop critiques of his foundational “principles of justice.” We then broaden our investigation of Rawls’s liberalism by addressing the various critics of his philosophy, including Michael Sandel on republicanism, Susan Okin on feminism, Robert Nozick on libertarianism, and John Kekes on conservatism. Later, students analyze a contemporary political controversy of their choosing—such as genetic engineering or same-sex marriage—through the lens of a particular political philosophy. Throughout the semester, students post entries to the class blog, analyzing current political controversies and presenting their own informed views.

Magic permeated medieval society. From the courtier using love spells to make a match, to the student performing rituals in lieu of studying, to the healer mending wounds with the aid of charms and amulets, magic was used by both high and low. In this Writing Seminar, we examine the depiction and practice of magic from the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, focusing on how medieval people understood magic and differentiated it from other endeavors, such as religion, science, and medicine. We begin by considering the function of magic in courtly romances by Geoffrey Chaucer, Chrétien de Troyes, and Marie de France. We then turn to the relationship between magic and religion. Using anthropologist Clifford Geertz’s acclaimed essay “Religion as a Cultural System” as a framework, we investigate works by medieval theologians and philosophers, including Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon, and magical treatises, such as The Sworn Book of Honorius, a veritable “how to” for magicians wanting to divine secrets or conjure spirits. In the course’s second half, students choose and research a specific topic concerning magic and its role in medieval culture and society. Students conclude the semester by reviewing a scholarly book on medieval magic encountered through their research.

In the late nineteenth century, sensational newspaper accounts of Jack the Ripper shocked Londoners and gave birth to the Ripper’s cult status as a hero-criminal. More than a gory tale, the Ripper episode has provided cultural critics and historians an opportunity to explore the deeper meanings and functions of crime stories in general. In this Writing Seminar, we examine our fascination with spectacularly violent crimes and what they reveal about the urban societies in which we live. We begin with the extraordinary history of the nineteenth-century Paris morgue, which French citizens tended to regard as a museum of violent crime. Next, we watch From Hell, a Hollywood version of the Ripper episode, to examine the way crime stories are interpreted and re-imagined in new historical and geographical situations. For the research paper, students select a criminal case study and develop an argument about how it relates to its historical context. Possible topics include Charles Manson, the Great Train Robbery, and the Black Dahlia murder. Finally, we reflect on current disagreements about the effects of crime stories in the media, music, film, or video games. Readings include selections from Edgar Allan Poe, Michel Foucault, George Bernard Shaw, and Arthur Conan Doyle.

“Memory is what makes our lives,” filmmaker Luis Buñuel observed. “Without it, we are nothing.” Yet as modern novelists, artists, and filmmakers have shown, memory is as fragmentary and fallible as it is essential to human existence. In this Writing Seminar, we consider the nature and meaning of memory in the modern world. How does personal memory differ from collective remembering? What constitutes an ethical relationship with the dead and with the past? And what is the role of forgetting in remembering? We begin with the best-selling graphic memoir Fun Home (2006), in which cartoonist Alison Bechdel tries to piece together her father’s ambiguous history and understand her place within it. Using the insights of Cathy Caruth and Susan Sontag, we then analyze the workings of memory in the influential film Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), in which images of catastrophe are juxtaposed with the love affair of two survivors a decade later. For the research paper, we turn to the relationship between private and public remembering: students select a memorial site, such as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and explore its implicit statements about what and how we remember. We conclude by reflecting on our own memories and ways of remembering.

When Berry Gordy, Jr., founded Motown Records in 1959, he touted his record label as “the sound of young America,” and sure enough, Motown tracks like Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street” and The Temptations’ “My Girl” functioned as a virtual soundtrack to the 1960s. In this Writing Seminar, we investigate the music of Motown and the role it played in the rapidly changing cultural and political landscape of the American 1960s. We begin by critiquing the famous “Motown sound,” examining the various ways in which Motown songs relate to the genres of blues, gospel, doo-wop, and even funk. Next, students explore the relationship between Motown’s commercial and crossover success and notions of black musical authenticity. For the research paper, students develop arguments about the role of Motown artists or recordings in the Civil Rights movement or another relevant historical context. Throughout the course, we draw on scholarly writing about Motown; sound recordings and videos of Motown performers such as Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, and even Langston Hughes; and popular cinematic depictions of Motown. Students end the semester by writing reviews of a Motown album in the style of Rolling Stone magazine.

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.

“Every joke,” wrote George Orwell, “is a tiny revolution.” In this Writing Seminar, we test Orwell’s idea through an examination of various historical and contemporary forms of political laughter. Does laughter, in its various guises, possess a genuinely liberating power, or is it a tool for political oppression? Is political comedy a serious medium for exposing and criticizing injustice, or is it a lighthearted form of escapism? Does political satire provoke political action, or does it lull its audience into apathy? We begin our investigation with Ralph Ellison’s acclaimed essay “An Extravagance of Laughter,” exploring the connections between comedy and racial identity, and how “laughter” can be employed as a concept for understanding politics. We then analyze the political dimensions of comedy in Lysistrata, by the great ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes, in which wives withhold sex from their husbands as a political protest against the Peloponnesian War. For the research project, students research and interpret a contemporary or historical work of political comedy of their choosing. Finally, students write either an op-ed piece on an episode of contemporary political laughter or a short political satire. Our investigations are aided by the writings of Aristotle, Hobbes, Kant, Freud, Emerson, and Baudelaire.

Political violence—war, ethnic conflict, genocide, torture, repression—fundamentally destroys the fabric of everyday life in local communities and larger societies. Yet political violence often generates certain forms of order and leads to the formation of powerful social movements. Is violence necessary for social and political transformation? How do individuals and communities rebuild after violence? What are the consequences of such violence for citizenship and belonging? In this Writing Seminar, we explore the complex relationship between political violence and social change. We begin by studying the impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on American political practice, specifically interrogation and torture policies, through an examination of the abuse of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison. We then examine the politics of accountability and reconciliation in testimonies, ethnographies, and Truth Commission Reports from Latin American and African countries struggling with the aftermath of genocide and repression. In the course’s second half, students investigate a case of political violence anywhere in the world, analyzing the relationship among violence, order, and social change. Readings include memoirs by Jacobo Timerman and Rigoberta Menchú, journalistic accounts, and critical studies of political violence, social change, and justice by Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Elizabeth Jelin, and others.

In the United States, as in other Western democracies, citizens enjoy extensive political, social, and economic liberty, yet they invest their government with vast and unprecedented power. In this Writing Seminar, we explore the paradoxical relationship between state power and individual liberty through a study of key texts in modern political thought. What is the nature of freedom, and what are the criteria of legitimate political authority? Is democracy an engine for liberty or tyranny? Can it drive both at the same time? We begin with political theorist Isaiah Berlin’s influential 1958 essay, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” which has defined the terms of subsequent discussions of political freedom. Next, we encounter notorious exemplars of these two concepts—Hobbes’s Leviathan and Rousseau’s Social Contract—which help us consider the American Framers’ intentions in constructing the U.S. Constitution. In the second half of the course, students undertake research projects and an op-ed piece on power and liberty in America today, assessing how state and citizen defend, undermine, and ultimately define freedom. Possible topics include the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the PATRIOT Act, and the various battlefronts of the culture war, such as abortion, gay marriage, immigration, and privacy.

From Gone with the Wind to Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Hollywood movies have reflected and shaped American ideas about race. Because of their popularity and influence, movies are the battleground for many heated debates: Are racial stereotypes always harmful? What should race look like on the screen? Should popular culture try to change American racial attitudes, and, if so, how? In this Writing Seminar, we think critically about race in Hollywood by engaging with a variety of films, criticism, and theory. We begin by considering Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (2000), a tale of contemporary blackface minstrelsy, in the context of Eric Lott’s theory of racial performance. We then examine the contrasting visions of race in the 1934 film Imitation of Life and its 1959 remake, about a young black woman’s decision to pass as white. For the research paper, students investigate the historical or critical context of a Hollywood film; possibilities include West Side Story, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Watermelon Man, Blazing Saddles, Do the Right Thing, Mississippi Masala, Traffic, and Crash. Finally, students review a recent film of their choice. Readings include essays by Princeton professors Toni Morrison, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Valerie Smith, and Anne Cheng.

Recent and ongoing debates about immigration in North America, Europe, and Australia focus on what social scientists call “irregular migration”—the movement of people across borders without visas or legitimate passports. Included in this category are refugees, political asylum-seekers, undocumented workers, and individuals trafficked for sexual exploitation and slavery. They cross oceans and deserts; live in squatter settlements, brothels, and labor camps; seek help from smugglers and clergy; and end up in prisons, hospitals, and morgues. In this Writing Seminar, we examine the culture, politics, and ethics of irregular migration. Are the root causes of this migration political or economic, and why does that matter? Is social justice for such migrants compatible with security and limited resources? We begin by analyzing controversial films, such as In This World and Golden Venture, then delve into debates about asylum and border policy. We read memoirs by Edwidge Danticat and survivors of torture, analyze judges’ asylum decisions, and consider immigration, race, and social justice as articulated by Mae M. Ngai, Hannah Arendt, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Filipina domestic worker advocates. In the course’s second half, students interview members of an immigrant community or the lawyers, mental health workers, and teachers who work with them.

Recent debates over whether intelligent design should be taught in public schools have polarized religious and scientific communities. Health care professionals and charitable religious organizations in Africa work to control the spread of AIDS, yet they strongly disagree over whether to promote condom use or encourage abstinence as the best prevention method. Can groups with radically different worldviews work together to reach consensus on pressing social and ethical issues, or will religion and science always be in irreconcilable conflict? What role should religion and science each play in guiding policy decisions about health, education, or the environment? In this Writing Seminar, we explore modern ethical dilemmas in which scientific hypotheses meet religious dogma, and both scientific and religious beliefs are put into question. We begin with debates between biblical literalists and scientific materialists over “intelligent design” versus evolution. In the second half of the course, students choose a contemporary ethical issue that is informed by both science and religion—stem cell research, for example, or assisted suicide—and develop a policy proposal that supports their position. Our discussions are informed by scientists, theologians, and philosophers, including Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Phillip Johnson.

Gang members must kill a motorist as an initiation rite. A cobra is found in an item of department store clothing. The puppy that a couple brings home from abroad turns out to be a rat. Such bizarre narrative tidbits are characteristic of what folklorists call “urban legends.” Their source is typically identified as a “friend of a friend” (FOAF), and the proof they are true is usually limited to hearsay. In this Writing Seminar, we apply the tools of folklore and psychology not to debunk such stories but to understand why they arise, what function they serve for those who circulate them, and how they reflect collective beliefs and anxieties. We first assess teenage tales like “The Hook” and “The Killer in the Backseat” as they appear in venues including the Internet, horror films, and dormitory bull sessions. We then explore how ethnically charged “wedge rumors,” which highlight intergroup rivalries, often exacerbate negative stereotypes. In the second half of the course, students research and contextualize a legend cycle generated by a disaster such as the sinking of the Titanic, a political assassination, or Hurricane Katrina. In a final assignment, they review a movie based on a rumor or legend.

Kill an animal and rain will come, the crops will grow, we’ll win the war: every human culture has, at some point in its history, practiced sacrifice. In the contemporary U.S., we tend to abhor the notion that ritual violence can magically avert disaster or bring prosperity. Yet some theorists argue that although sacrifice is now taboo, the logic of sacrifice—in which someone is hurt, expelled, or killed to ensure the survival or prosperity of a group—is at work in phenomena as various as capital punishment, violence against women, the ghettoization of the poor, and the eating of meat. In this Writing Seminar, we consider sacrifice in everyday life and popular culture, drawing on the ideas of René Girard, Roberto Calasso, and Georges Bataille. Among our objects of inquiry are contemporary social practices, including plastic surgery, hazing, and religious worship; political rhetoric, such as the celebration of our soldiers’ self-sacrifice in war; and sacrificial myths in popular culture, such as the television show Survivor, the film Fight Club, and even the video game Grand Theft Auto. We conclude the semester by writing creative essays in which we reflect on the sacrifices we make in our everyday lives.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 23 million Americans spend nearly 400 hours a year commuting to and from work. Many seem content to pay this price for living in suburban neighborhoods, which they see as cleaner, safer, and cheaper than city residences. Yet the rapid growth of suburbs has created “urban sprawl,” a term now synonymous with superhighways, strip malls, housing subdivisions, and even the breakdown of community itself. And while sprawl may offer an attractive lifestyle, it wreaks environmental havoc—threatening ecosystems, creating air pollution, and consuming green open spaces. In this Writing Seminar, we examine urban sprawl from both scientific and political perspectives. We begin by entering the debate over the commuter lifestyle, analyzing the benefits and drawbacks of “car-based living.” We then evaluate the environmental and political implications of sprawling development in the Florida Panhandle, where pristine conifer forests are quickly becoming suburbanized. For the research paper, students explore an unresolved issue related to sprawl in their hometowns, working toward a policy recommendation. We end the semester by authoring op-ed pieces based on this research. Our readings are drawn from a variety of sources, including academic books and articles, government publications, and the media.

Nearly four hundred years after Ben Jonson called his rival William Shakespeare “not of an age, but for all time,” the truth of this bold claim is hard to deny. Yet Shakespeare was most certainly “of an age”—the Elizabethan era, a time when England was a highly stratified and regulated society, the monarch ruled by divine right, wives were legally the property of their husbands, and playacting was denounced by some as the devil’s work. In this Writing Seminar, we examine Shakespeare’s plays in their original context as a way of recovering some of their lost meanings. We begin by considering Twelfth Night in light of C. L. Barber’s classic concept of “festive comedy,” which links the pattern of Shakespeare’s early plays to such Elizabethan celebrations as Christmas, May Day, and Midsummer Eve. We then turn to Othello to explore how Shakespeare uses Elizabethan social institutions and constructs, including race, religion, gender, and marriage. For the research paper, students reinterpret a Shakespeare play of their choice by placing it in historical context. We conclude the semester by writing reviews of current stage or film productions of a Shakespeare play. Readings include Elizabethan travel writing, instruction manuals, and histories.

You stare self-consciously at the doors of a crowded elevator, dress for your first day of classes, or tell the story of a grueling exam. Although these actions and interactions may seem to be natural elements in our everyday lives, according to sociologist Erving Goffman, they’re actually pieces of theatre, the staging and parts of which we have learned through years of training. In unpacking the role of performance in our daily lives, we may begin to see how life is like theatre—a site where meaning is created and enacted through dialogue, choreography, and dramatic action. In this Writing Seminar, we ask, How does performance function in everyday life? When do we cast ourselves in starring roles or take our place in the audience? What aspects of life do we explain through social dramas, ritual, or festival? In answering these questions, we draw upon scholarship in folklore, anthropology, and theatre as we consider the theatricality of our own lives; a natural history museum’s staging of the ritual drama of cultural others; and cultural performances of students’ own choosing. Readings include Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Richard Schechner’s The Future of Ritual, and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s Destination Culture.

Restrained, buttoned-down, and corseted: the Victorian period in England is typically thought of as an era of insularity and soul-destroying constraints. Yet along with the deep concerns for propriety and for protecting English culture that undeniably characterized Victorian times came a seemingly conflicting obsession with distant cultures, people, and places. In this Writing Seminar, we examine the Victorian fixation on the exotic, focusing first on literary accounts of journeys to “unknown” worlds: Charles Darwin as he confronts the people of Tierra del Fuego and the strange air of Cape Verde in Voyage of the Beagle; and Kurtz, in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, as he travels to the African interior. As a background for these writings, we look at Victorian ideas about race and at the massive importation of foreign things that the Victorians undertook—in particular, their attempt to populate English farms and forests with exotic animals from far-flung countries of the world. For the research project, we consider the exotic in Victorian culture more broadly by investigating depictions of the Arab world in painting and Victorian fads for collecting flora, fauna, recipes, and everyday objects from “exotic” locales. We conclude by examining the exotic in contemporary books and film.