Writing Seminars

Meeting times for the Spring Writing Seminars will be posted in the Fall.

Seminar Descriptions

American Dissent

Sean Cashbaugh

In 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” praising violent dissent by linking it with freedom. Yet Jefferson was a slave owner and, as president, he tolerated the suppression of legitimate political opposition. This paradox between dissent and conformity is not a bug of American democracy, but a feature: from the Civil Rights Movement’s appeals to nationalism to the Old Left’s frequent focus on the white male worker, it seems that dissent in America often aligns with elements of its opposite. From reform to revolution, what contradictions can opposition reveal? In this Writing Seminar, we explore the achievements—and limits—of ideas and movements that challenge the status quo. First, we analyze speeches by Frederick Douglass and Angela Davis about the politics of abolitionism to refine recent theories of dissent’s political function. Next, we examine historical, anthropological, and economic perspectives on the Woodstock Music and Art Fair of 1969 to consider the significance of this countercultural business venture. For the research project, students investigate an act, movement, or theory of dissent of their own choosing. Possible topics include antifa, minority Supreme Court positions, and the radical conservatism of the John Birch Society.

 

And the Rest Is Drag

Tyler Baldor

RuPaul Charles, host of the popular TV competition series RuPaul’s Drag Race, famously said, “We’re all born naked and the rest is drag.” We generally think of drag as a specific kind of transgression––dressing up as the opposite gender––but how might “drag” describe the myriad choices we make each day to be seen and understood? How do we display who we are to the world, and why do we present the way we do? We begin this Writing Seminar by analyzing gender-bending performances from television and music in light of Erving Goffman’s theory of self-presentation in everyday life. Next, we explore New York City during the 1920s and ’30s “Pansy Craze,” as students engage with a range of scholarship—from urban studies and the history of medicine to sociology, visual studies, literary analysis, and the law—to examine how we draw boundaries between what’s considered “deviant” and “normal.” For the research paper, students investigate an aspect of identity and material culture in a case study of their choosing. Sample topics include the depiction of the villain Ursula in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, the history of the pantsuit in American business and politics, and the use of drag in Princeton Triangle Shows.

 

Answering the Call

Chernice Miller

From Superman and Wonder Woman, to first responders, teachers, and grandparents, diverse heroes occupy our hearts and imaginations. Sometimes they’re the irreproachable or historical, while at other times they’re strangers doing their jobs or friends showing simple kindnesses. So what does it mean to be a hero–or to call someone a hero–when anyone can put on their cape? And why might we call someone a hero even when they reject the title or couldn’t foresee their impact? In this Writing Seminar we explore controversies surrounding heroism and those who answer the call. We begin by analyzing stories of everyday heroism through the lens of trauma theory, questioning why and when bystanders take action. We turn next to the legacy of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose 1951 biopsy was repurposed without her consent to establish the HeLa human cell line, an invaluable source of medical research that raises ethical questions about agency, power, and heroic memory. For the research project students investigate a contested moment of heroism–a deed, depiction, contest, or discovery–and make an original argument about its social, cultural, or scientific significance. Sample topics include memorials to Christopher Columbus, veneration of healthcare workers during the Covid-19 pandemic, Nazi weapons designers building NASA rockets, and the vigilantism of Bruce Wayne.

 

Assigned at Birth

LC Santangelo

Exploding pink baseballs, a box filled with pink or blue balloons, a blue cake hidden under a thick coat of icing—photographs of and instructions for gender reveal parties fill the social sphere. Even before a child is born, we discuss, celebrate, and make assumptions about the person they will grow into based on their anatomy. What messages are we conveying in doing so? How does gender inform a person’s sense of self? And what are the consequences for those whose gender identity does not align with that assigned at birth? This Writing Seminar analyzes how gender is taught, resisted, redefined, and policed. First, we explore concepts of legibility, transnormativity, and identity in Alok Vaid-Menon’s primer, Beyond the Gender Binary. Next, we turn to sociology, medicine, and history to examine Christine Jorgensen’s experiences transitioning in the 1950s and the price of public visibility thereafter. For the final project, students write an original research paper about an institution, practice, or artifact that defines, reconfigures, and/or resists gender norms; for instance, laws and policies surrounding bathrooms, the economics behind the “pink tax,” or the gender ideology of Queer as Folk.

 

Badlands

Lynne Feeley

Huge bulbous plants. Globular roots. Endless pools of black water. So wrote an 1842 newspaper correspondent of the Great Dismal Swamp, a forbidding marshland on the border of North Carolina and Virginia. She was not alone in her opinion; European-descended colonists had long railed against the swamp’s menacing ecology, and their attempts to develop it into farmland had failed miserably. Yet, where colonists saw only difficulty, enslaved people saw opportunity. Thousands fled slavery for the swamp, transforming it into one of the nation’s largest sites of fugitivity. In this Writing Seminar we explore the histories and futures of bad lands. What makes a place unusable, and what makes it redeemable? Who gets to decide on the shape and purpose of a landscape, and why? We begin by studying David Hanson’s photographs of ravaged landscapes—from coal strip mines to petrochemical complexes—in the context of Edmund Burke’s theory of the sublime. Then we dive into the ecology and culture of antebellum swamps. For the research project, students choose a site that might be perceived as a wasteland, placing it in historical, economic, or scientific context. Examples include the Atacama Desert, the Pacific trash vortex, Chernobyl, the abandoned town of Wittenoom, Australia, or one of New Jersey’s 114 Superfund sites.

 

Banishing the Dark

Abigail Sargent

Today, when it gets dark, it’s easy to flip a switch and take the resulting light for granted. But for millennia, light demanded steady labor, making illumination less accessible but perhaps more sought after. If we understand “progress” as moving out from the shadows, what mysteries or freedoms do we risk banishing along with the dark? And as technology affords us greater command over the night, who has access to light switches? How are human rhythms and behaviors affected? In this Writing Seminar, we explore the meaning of illumination and the power to control the dark. We begin in the gloomy forests of folklore, examining the tale of Vasilisa the Fair alongside research on how humans cope with darkness. Next, we turn to technology’s promise to expel danger from urban spaces as students analyze the interplay of politics, economics, and engineering in late 19th-century initiatives to electrify and illuminate the city streets of Philadelphia. Students conclude the semester by investigating the significance of light—or its absence—in a cultural practice, biological process, or technology of their choosing. Sample research topics range from ancient solstice festivals, to the impact of screen time before bed, rolling blackouts in Egypt, and designs for greenhouses in deep space.

 

Captivating Animals

Catherine Young

From BBC Earth documentaries and Disney films to pollinator gardens and the dogs of Instagram, animals are captivating figures. Yet they are also captive test subjects in scientific laboratories, pests in human habitats, and raw material in factory farms. How do we explain such complicated, inconsistent attitudes towards animal life? How do we draw boundaries between animals and humans, and how does drawing that boundary guide both fascination and exploitation? This Writing Seminar begins by examining the use of animatronic wildlife cameras in light of roboticist Masahiro Mori’s theory about the uncanny valley effect. We turn next to the Bronx Zoo in order to analyze the institution through economic, philosophical, and zoological perspectives; students will explore current exhibits and their design, financial data, and historical documents including the Zoo’s 2020 apology for exhibiting an abducted Congolese man in 1906. For the research paper, students identify and investigate a human-animal cultural practice of their choosing. Possible topics range from the international politics of protecting endangered mammals, to the ethics of harvesting pig valves to treat cardiac disease in humans, the transmission of zoonotic diseases in meat industries, the invocation of animal guides and totems in spiritual practices, and the relationship between anthropomorphized wildlife and human stereotypes in children’s cartoons.

 

The Craft of Authenticity 

Julianna Visco

Artisanal chocolate, handcrafted wood furniture, and bespoke tailoring suggest a cultural craving for close physical connection between artisan and object. Multinational corporations like IKEA and H&M are not only partnering with artisans to sell sustainable goods but also producing a “hand-crafted” aesthetic on assembly lines—all attainable through the click of a button. In what ways might the commodification of craftwork challenge our understanding of authenticity? How do we relate to an object when physical interaction is replaced with a virtual showcase? In this Writing Seminar, we explore the complicated relationship between craft and profit, interrogating authenticity and appropriation. Students begin by crafting a woven object or kneading bread, investigating the relationship between material, maker, and object. We then shift perspective from maker to consumer as students examine Etsy—an online marketplace for handmade, vintage and custom goods—by exploring the sociology of craft industries, the economics of peer-to-peer platforms, and the colonial legacy of craft in Western cultures. For the research project, students investigate a historical or contemporary making practice of their choice. Sample topics include pussyhats worn during the 2017 Women’s March, foodie appropriation of non-Western recipes, deepfake dances generated by AI for TikTok, African-American quilting, and the craft beer movement.

 

Curiosity

Liora Selinger

Albert Einstein said, “I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.” We prize the intellectual curiosity that leads to scientific discovery—and yet we say it was “curiosity that killed the cat.” What can we learn from this ambivalence? How does navigating from known to unknown, from familiar to foreign, challenge us as learners, innovators, and social beings? What ethical questions emerge when we label something—or someone—a “curiosity”? We begin by examining curiosity and human development as students analyze children’s books like Curious George and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in light of John Dewey’s theories of education. We turn next to the value of science for its own sake as students engage diverse perspectives— ranging from engineering and exobiology, to economics, cultural studies, and history of science—in order to investigate the relationship between open-ended inquiry and tangible results in NASA’s 2011 launch of the Mars “Curiosity” Rover. For the research project, students will craft an original argument about an object of curiosity and the ways people respond to it. Potential topics include Netflix cliffhangers, Thomas Jefferson’s cabinet of curiosities, destinations featured on Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown, true crime podcasts, and the fascinations of “mad scientists” like Victor Frankenstein.

 

Disability Justice

Erin Raffety

Autistic, allistic, crip, neurodivergent, and chronically ill: disabled activists are coining new terms, displaying disability pride, and taking the disability rights movement into the 21^st century. And yet, as the largest minority group in America, disabled people remain disproportionately disenfranchised, underemployed, and poor. How do theories of disability account for the diversity of disability experiences in America today? When it comes to disability rights and justice, what is the relationship between accessibility, accommodations, and inclusion? And what can disabled experiences teach us about our collective humanity? In this writing seminar we begin by analyzing how Deaf and intellectually disabled perspectives in the documentary films Sound and Fury and Including Samuel stretch medical and social models of disability. Next, we investigate the sprawling Princeton campus, and the iconic The Americans with Disabilities Act in the context of scholarship on racism, neoliberalism, universal design, and assistive technology. Finally, in the research unit, students expand their study of disability and justice to imminent and global challenges like disaster preparedness and evacuation plans, accessibility issues amid refugee crises, augmented communication and artificial intelligence, COVID vaccinations, crip sexuality, cochlear implants and Deaf culture, and the rise of anxiety disorders among young people.

 

Disrupting Nature

Jessica Jones

“Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis,” warn centuries-old stone tablets along Japan’s coasts. The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster underscored their admonition “do not build” below certain points. An 1878 US government report advised against unrestricted settlement in the arid watershed of the Colorado River. Today 40 million people and 3.2 million acres of farmland depend on its waters. Why do some modern civilizations choose to ignore warnings about nature’s threats? To what extent can human societies built for one image of the world adapt when that understanding fails? This Writing Seminar explores how we might re-imagine our planetary place in the face of climate crisis, transforming the ways we inhabit nature. We begin by thinking with Wanuri Kahiu’s futuristic sci-fi film Pumzi about the limits of the anthropocene – a geological epoch marked by human impact on Earth. Next, we consider the Indigenous movement against the Dakota Oil Pipeline and how competing values influence different stakeholders’ relationships to Standing Rock. For the research paper, students investigate a depiction or re-imagining of the human relationship to the natural world. Potential topics include Ana Mendieta’s art, Disney’s Encanto, the Green New Deal, Svalbard’s seed vault, the Detroit Gardening Angels, or making cows burp less to reduce greenhouse gasses. 

 

Educational Equities

Soo-Young Kim

Two centuries ago, public education advocate Horace Mann described education as “the great equalizer.” Today, U.S. student debt exceeds $1.7 trillion, and a racial achievement gap persists generations after Brown v. Board of Education ruled school segregation unconstitutional. Yet education remains central to American aspirations of equality and equity, as underscored by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she remarked, “The America that we are proud of is one in which all children can access a dignified education.” How does the idea of education as equalizer shape the ways we as individuals and collectives invest—financially, politically, morally—in education? What are the consequences of these investments in the classroom and beyond? We begin examining the purposes and promises of education by putting Princeton recruitment and orientation materials into dialogue with sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the forms of capital. Next, we turn to Public School District 15 in Brooklyn as we analyze the relationship among access, integration, and outcomes for New York City middle schoolers. For the research project, students investigate a program, movement, or debate through which they develop their own arguments about equity in education. Possible topics include online learning platforms, race-conscious admissions policies, and income-share tuition schemes.

 

Fight the Power

Sakinah Hofler

In 1965 thousands braved beatings to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to fight for civil rights. Fifty years later, millions of social media users shared videos of the murders of Eric Garner and George Floyd. In 2021, when NJ high-school basketball star Destiny Adams was denied permission by the board of education to wear a BLM warmup shirt, teammates arrived at the season opener wearing BLM hoodies. When does an act become activism? How many dissenters are needed to start a movement? And how do different avenues of protest follow from new technologies and changes in where people get their information? We begin this Writing Seminar analyzing elements of dissent in music videos by Beyoncé and NWA. Next, we turn to Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the National Anthem in the 2016 NFL season to investigate the relationship between media and activism using statistical, algorithmic, and historical perspectives. For the research project, students identify a contemporary protest or related art form and develop an argument about its economic, social, or cultural impact. Sample topics include LGBTQ-inclusive commercials by Fortune 500 brands, female autonomy in The Handmaid’s Tale, and protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

 

The Future of Food

Philip Keel Geheber

The United Nations estimates that in 2050 a global population of 10 billion will require twice as much food as the world does today. At the same time, scientists project climate change will reduce yields of agriculture, livestock, and fisheries. As food systems become less able to meet demand, how will humans continue to nourish an ever-growing population in the long term? What will this mean for established modes of distribution? And how can we ensure equitable access? This Writing Seminar begins by examining the food system infrastructure in Princeton as we draw on sociologist Andrew Deener’s study of food deserts to analyze food costs and quality with respect to grocery store locations and their target customers. Next, we examine a historic example of a food catastrophe, the 1867-1869 Swedish Famine, by attending to its climatic and political causes, effects on emigration and epigenetics, and cultural memory. For the research project, students identify and investigate a food source issue that will affect the food system in the near future, placing its future production and distribution in its ecological, economic, or sociocultural context. Topics could range from vertical farming in Newark, to the ethics of lab-grown meat, to moratoriums on traditional whale hunting.

 

Gray Matter

Jorie Hofstra

Zombies crave them, drugs “fry” them, scientists map them, our hearts’ desires overrule them. How do all these different ways of imagining what a brain is, what it’s capable of, and how it relates to our personhood coexist? And among all the readily available metaphors, diagnostics, and literature used to describe the human brain, how do we come to know who we are in relation to our gray matter? In this Writing Seminar, we encounter artists, neuroscientists, social scientists, engineers, and psychologists who are all trying to understand the brain in relation to our bodies, our selves, and our environments. We begin by analyzing Jordan Peele’s representation of the relationship between the mind and the brain in his 2017 horror film Get Out. Next, we critically investigate neuroscientific claims to objectivity, authority, and transparency in the case of amnesiac Henry Molaison—anonymized as “Patient H.M.”—whose 55 years as a research subject led to major shifts in the neuroscience of memory. Finally, students identify and critically analyze a particular way in which the brain participates in the social world: for instance, as a template for Elon Musk’s Neuralink, as a site of therapeutic intervention in personality disorders, or as a casualty of war.

 

Imagined Geographies

Osha Smith-Gittelman

In 1947, colonial mapmakers partitioned the British Raj into the countries of Pakistan and India along the hastily drawn Radcliffe Line, leading to mass migration and widespread violence. During the 2000 US presidential election, media outlets popularized the now familiar map of “red states” versus “blue states,” at once illustrating and contributing to deepened partisan polarization. While these maps helped trace the contours of political conflicts, social identities, and notions of belonging, they also oversimplified lived realities. How does map-making reflect our geographical and social lives? To what extent does it determine them? We begin this Writing Seminar examining official maps of Princeton University, developing a critical evaluation of cartography through our own readings of campus spaces. Next, we turn to Home Owners’ Loan Corporation maps and other “redlining” practices, analyzing their impact on demographics and segregation in post-WWII Chicago neighborhoods. For the final project, students will research an effort to map an uncharted domain of their choosing. Sample topics include depictions of theological or secular hellscapes, physicists’ efforts to model quantum entanglement, the implications of mapping the human genome, explorations of the inner self in modernist fiction, AI surveillance mapping and predictive policing, or the digital vistas of TikTok.

 

Imagining Childhood

Patrick W. Moran

Reflecting on a striking range of objects that were specifically designed for children—from bedroom furniture to board games, computer consoles to astronaut suits—the Museum of Modern Art called the 20th century “The Century of the Child.” If that’s the case, what was the status of the child previously, and what has happened to it since? How has childhood as a social category been defined and redefined in different times and different cultures? In this Writing Seminar, we consider the constantly changing perceptions of those earliest years of human development. We begin with an examination of how dominant ideas in a society find expression in children’s toys, from the dollhouse to the Rubik’s Cube. We then explore the role of literature and socialization in the elementary school classroom, investigating how books like The Cat in the Hat and Where the Wild Things Are shape a child’s ideas about race and gender. Finally, students identify an event, controversy, or product of their choosing that illuminates a society’s perspective on childhood in a particular era. Potential topics range from Japanese Children’s Day to Pokémon Go, the history of the Scout movement to adult humor in The Muppet Show. 

 

Modern Ruins

Jacqueline Campbell 

Chernobyl is the second most toxic place on Earth. Along with Hashima Island, Eastern State Penitentiary, and Fordlândia rubber plantation, this abandoned city also ranks among the most popular destinations for urban exploration tourism. While crowds still flock to Pompeii and the Great Wall, today we seem just as captivated by remnants of a past within living memory. What do our responses to shuttered factories, crumbling movie palaces, and vacant skyscrapers reveal about our sense of past and future? How does this appreciation for derelict spaces influence our view of the people who live and work nearby? In this Writing Seminar, we explore how communities experience and sometimes reclaim modern ruins. We begin by analyzing urban explorers’ videos of “dead malls” in light of theories about adventure. We turn next to ruins adapted for reuse as students explore SteelStacks, an entertainment and casino complex built on the site of Bethlehem Steel, once a leading American manufacturer. For the research paper, students place a vision of future ruins in a sociocultural or scientific context. Potential topics include speculative renderings of sea-level rise in Miami, the human wastelands of Disney’s WALL-E, and CGI ghost cities in the History Channel’s Life After People.

 

Outlawed and Infamous

Philip Johnson

Robin Hood famously robbed the rich to feed the poor, while cartel boss Pablo Escobar killed his rivals, built schools, and became so infamous that Netflix continues to profit from his story. Judging by their popularity, it seems many of us feel some fascination for stories about outlaws, but at what point does fascination become celebration? Who decides which crimes we retell and serialize? And if we blur the lines between champion and outlaw, what becomes of the victims? In this Writing Seminar, we explore the contradictions and meaning of criminal infamy. We begin by using historical accounts of social banditry in pre-industrial societies as a lens to analyze recent cyberattacks by the leaderless, borderless hacktivist group Anonymous. Next, we interrogate how and why Australians remember Ned Kelly, the 19th-century bank robber and murderer turned national icon. For the final project, students will develop an argument about perceptions of a specific criminal(ized) figure or event. Possible topics include vigilante justice in the Watchmen universe, the criminalization and prosecution of indigenous protesters near the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, and the mixed legacy of Dr. Timothy Leary, a psychedelic drug advocate who Richard Nixon called “the most dangerous man in America.”

 

Over the Edge of Disaster

Amit Anshumali

California’s vintners, orchard growers, and vegetable farmers enter a third decade of drought, at the same time surrounded by threat of wildfires and crop-destroying pests. Recent chemical spills risk poisoning the Bay of Bengal and the 1.4 billion people living along its coast. During Hurricane Ida, an unprecedented number of tornadoes tore through New Jersey, with one topping out at winds of 150 mph. As severe weather intensifies, how do communities respond once over the edge of disaster? How does human complicity shape our understanding of natural crises? We begin this Writing Seminar by analyzing the 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact through the lens of what economists and ecologists call “the tragedy of the commons,” namely the pursuit of self-interest by those using shared resources. We turn next to the 2014-2016 Flint Water Crisis, as we examine environmental policy and public utility at the intersection of race, gender, and socio-economic class. Finally, students conclude the semester by investigating an ecological disaster–past, present, or looming–and make a researched argument about the significance of anthropogenic impact in a case study of their choosing. Sample topics range from brownfield sites in the Rust Belt to desertification in the tropics, disrupted ocean currents, and ecosystems in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

 

Picture This

Selin Ünlüönen

“🐯! 🐯! 🔥💥” reads the first line in The Paris Review’s emoji poetry contest challenging the readers to identify Blake’s “Tyger Tyger, burning bright.” While those four emojis together would be meaningless without our knowledge of the poem, we text plenty of 🥰s and 👏s, which effectively convey meaning without relying on words. How do pictures work separately or together with language to generate new meanings, interpretations, and channels of communication? And how are technological advances in social media and artificial intelligence influencing the ways we share the human experience? In this Writing Seminar, we first analyze Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are to gain perspective on theories of representation in poetry and painting. Next, we turn our attention to artwork created using Dall-E, an AI tool that generates images in response to textual input, as students interrogate questions of copyright, authorship, art historical styles, and prompt engineering. For the research project, students develop an original argument about how we picture something that is too large, abstract, or complex to grasp easily. Some examples include Voyager I’s “pale blue dot” photograph of the Earth, illustrations accompanying Dante’s visions of the afterlife, Barbara Kruger’s protest art, and growth projections charted by the International Monetary Fund.

 

The Politics of Agency

Shaofei Lu

Barbara and Christine are identical twins raised in the same household. As children they were difficult to tell apart, but their personalities diverged in adolescence as they began making choices according to their own tastes and values. Today Barbara describes herself as confident and outgoing, while Christine admits to feeling self-conscious and suffering from severe depression. How much of life is driven by choice and agency? How much by circumstance and environment? What determines one’s life path, even when nature and nurture work to control so many of the variables? We begin this Writing Seminar by investigating the lives of New York City drug dealers as we evaluate the extent to which individuals are shaped by the people around them. We turn next to the Chinese state’s policy of rehabilitating traditional alleyway communities in Beijing (Hutongs), as students analyze tensions between local advocates for cultural preservation and government designs for urban redevelopment. For the final research project, students identify an institution or demographic and make a researched argument about the place of personal agency within that larger social structure. Potential topics range from women in tech industries and athletes training for the Olympics, to second-generation Americans, Catholic nuns in politics, universal basic income recipients, and homeless encampments in Seattle.

 

The Politics of Disease

Eli Anders

We often conceptualize diseases strictly as biological phenomena—bodily manifestations of viral encounters or toxic exposures. Yet disease categories are more than neutral descriptions of the natural world; as historian Charles Rosenberg argues, “in some ways disease does not exist until we have agreed that it does, by perceiving, naming, and responding to it.” From asthma to anxiety, the framing of disease categories—and our responses to them—are shaped by contests over experience, expertise, and the political economy of medicine. How do we define and make sense of disease? How do cultural contexts shape treatment and research? How does illness influence identity? We begin with the graphic novel Lissa, analyzing its depictions of cancer and kidney disease during the Arab Spring in light of theories about personhood and genetic risk. Next, we turn to debates over “Long COVID,” investigating how patients and practitioners have shaped biomedical knowledge about the condition, why it has been so challenging to diagnose, and what is at stake in how it is defined. Finally, students will research a diagnostic technology, therapeutic intervention, or scientific or cultural representation of illness, exploring how it has shaped conceptualizations of disease. Possible topics include weight loss drugs; “race correction” in diagnostic algorithms; art of the AIDS crisis; and breast cancer “pinkwashing.”

 

The Posthuman

Marina Fedosik

Eugene Goostman, an artificial intelligence program that passed the Turing Test, and CRISPR-Cas9, a relatively simple bio-technology for gene-editing, are just two harbingers of our posthuman future. Scientists and the public perceive these breakthroughs as simultaneously fascinating and alarming, but what is it, exactly, that’s so unsettling about a machine’s ability to impersonate a human, or our proficiency in manipulating genomes? In this Writing Seminar, we consider the ways new technological possibilities both define and challenge our understanding of ourselves. We begin with reading science fiction by Charles Stross alongside symbiogenesis theory to reexamine the idea of the self-contained human subject in the age of biohacking. Next, we question Cartesian dualism as a framework for human identity by using the theories of Donna Haraway and N. Katherine Hayles to analyze real-world AIs like PARO, the therapeutic seal-robot; Replika, your chatbot doppelganger; and representations of human/technology entanglements in Ex Machina and Black Mirror. For the research project, students analyze a posthuman phenomenon of their choice to make an argument about the ways it is changing our notions of shared humanity. Examples include the cloning of extinct species, art created by AI, and the kind of posthuman intimacy represented by Erika Eiffel, who married the Eiffel Tower.

 

Seeing is Believing

Thea Goldring

The Hubble Space Telescope captured the “Pillars of Creation” by translating invisible spectra into brilliant colors, bringing into focus a nebula 6,500 light-years beyond our sun. PET scans peer into the brain, using radioactive tracers to map the neurological origins of human emotions, cognition, and dreams. How else do geologists and biologists, paintbrushes and algorithms render the invisible, the fleeting, the unknown and never-before-seen? How do the limitations of human sight influence what science can envision, and how can human imagination, in turn, extend the limits of what can be seen and believed? We begin this Writing Seminar in the University’s special collections as students examine groundbreaking illustrations of the previously hidden realms made visible by the invention of the microscope. We turn next to 19th-century paintings of the lost world of dinosaurs, as students dig into early attempts to reconstruct prehistoric fauna and flora. For the final paper, students identify and investigate an attempt to render the unseeable. Possible topics range from the subatomic to the interstellar, from the deep past to the distant future, including CERN’s artistic residency program, speculative views across the landscape of Proxima Centauri b, exhibits of Paleolithic humans at the American Museum of Natural History, and cover art for the cyperpunk novel Neuromancer.

 

Seeking Nature

Sarah Case

Activities like “forest bathing” have taken off among adults seeking to escape from the pressures of modern life. Yet people of color in New York State today are 10x more likely to live in nature-deprived communities. And at a time when human impacts on the environment are driving extinctions, Netflix and Disney are spending billions on new wildlife shows for their subscribers. What determines the value of nature and who can access it? How is that perspective shaped by its experience or loss? This Writing Seminar investigates the relationship between humans and the natural world. We begin by exploring Princeton’s manicured lawns and shaded groves through the lens of biophilia, analyzing the connections between campus life and overlapping ecologies. We turn next to Manhattan’s High Line, a public park built on the site of an abandoned elevated train line, as students examine urban redevelopment in terms of equity and access to green spaces. For the research paper, students choose a natural site, real or imagined, and develop an original argument about the relationship between humanity and that environment. Possible topics include the Galapagos Islands as a destination for ecotourism, projects reintroducing leopards in Mozambique’s Zinave National Park, or landscapes invented by sci-fi authors like Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood.

 

Sexual Revolutions

Alexander K. Davis

With consent education being added to numerous American public school curricula, ESPN podcasts openly challenging toxic masculinity in professional sports, and the World Health Organization insisting on the importance of gender-affirming care for trans people of all ages, evidence abounds that cultural beliefs about gender and sexuality are moving in an ever-more progressive direction in the second decade of the twenty-first century. But with the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, a surge of library book bans targeting works with queer characters, and the gender pay gap remaining immovable, are those shifts truly as revolutionary as they seem? When—and how—can genuine social change be achieved? In this Writing Seminar, we investigate the perpetual tension between cultural evolution and institutional stasis, and we do so by exploring some of the most cherished parts of our personal lives: gendered identities and sexual intimacies. We start the semester by considering “Sexual Revolutions” in popular media, case law, and scientific research alike, as we uncover the surprising ideological messages embedded in seemingly benign cultural texts. Next, we center your personal interests in “Sexual Revolutions” and pitch research projects that can innovatively add to what scholars already know about those topics. Finally, we see those proposals through—and craft independent research papers that make new and noteworthy contributions to scholarship on your chosen “Sexual Revolution.”

 

Sound and the City

Christopher Parton 

In his 1916 book The City of Din, Scottish author Dan McKenzie decried the ever-increasing levels of noise in modern cities and its danger to public health. Around a hundred years later, however, many of the world’s metropolises fell quiet as the first round of COVID measures came into effect. So dramatic was the reduction of noise in Tokyo, the difference registered on seismographs. But even in his tirade against city noise, McKenzie admitted that “civilization is noise.” This Writing Seminar asks: What can we learn about cities—their histories, communities, and ecologies—from listening to urban environments? How do we discern a city’s heartbeat from its clamor? How do we make sense of silence in the streets? We begin by analyzing the presentation of silence in pandemic lockdown videos of Paris and Rome through R. Murray Schafer’s work on soundscapes. We then turn to the issue of noise pollution in New York City to explore who gets to decide what is and isn’t noise. Finally, students will write an original paper on an act of listening in a historical, cultural, or biological context. Possible topics include: sound design of open-world video games, sonic crowd control at BLM protests, or music and curated sounds carried into deep space by NASA’s Voyager spacecraft. 

 

Speaking American

Shawn Gonzalez

A recent Coke commercial that featured “America the Beautiful” in languages including Mandarin, Hindi, and Arabic provoked strong reactions from viewers. Critics argued that the use of multiple languages was unpatriotic and divisive, while supporters praised the ad for promoting American ideals and unity. But who gets to decide which ways of speaking are American? And how does the way we speak shape access to opportunity in the United States? In this Writing Seminar, we explore how race, ethnicity, and class influence attitudes about language and belonging. We begin with multilingual children’s books as we analyze how artists reach audiences with different language backgrounds. Next, we turn to a bilingual education program in Philadelphia public schools, drawing on linguistics, sociology, cognitive science, and education studies to explore how language learning relates to academic achievement and social inequalities starting at a young age. For the research project, students investigate a multilingual practice or phenomenon in a community of their choice. Potential topics might include the strategic use of Spanish in U.S. political campaigns, the role of Blackfoot in the film Wonder Woman, the collaboration behind crossover hit “Despacito,” or the controversy surrounding the translation of the Bible into Jamaican Patwa.

 

Sustainable Futures

Andrea DiGiorgio

In 2018, Hawaii banned sunscreen for harming Pacific coral reefs, while consumers boycotted Oreos to protect the rainforest. Quarterback Tom Brady joined campaigns against plastic straws to save the sea turtles, yet straws account for just 4% of plastic pollution. Coca-Cola raised $2M dollars to save its iconic polar bears, but by the time you finish this course, 80.3 billion tons of polar ice will have melted into the oceans. In light of the growing evidence of human-induced climate change and the risk of a “sixth extinction,” what tools do we have to make informed decisions about consumption—and who should make these decisions? How do we navigate the tensions between environmental sustainability on the one hand and producing necessities, comforts—and Oreos—on the other? In this Writing Seminar, we first analyze the rhetoric of climate change in the media and World Wildlife Fund conservation campaigns. Next, we evaluate the cultural, ethical, and ecological meanings of sustainability by examining the benefits and costs of palm oil consumption. For the research paper, students will investigate an example of depletion or extinction in its sociocultural or scientific context. Potential topics include the honeybee population crash, America’s new recycling problem, or the plight of the pangolin.

 

Sweet Tooth

Tatiana Nuñez-Bright

Journalist Michael Moss popularized the term “bliss point,” a corporate shorthand for the quantity of sugar needed to “override the brain’s natural ‘stop’ signals.” How does the mass production of sweeteners influence the balance of power between consumers, Big Sugar, and those who harvest sugarcane? How has our collective sweet tooth impacted our very understanding of sweetness, whether as a flavor or a social ideal? In this Writing Seminar, we explore the relationships between cultural values, sensory tastes, and economic exploitation. We begin by analyzing the film The Three Faces of Eve (1957) alongside Simone de Beauvoir’s claims about sweetness as it relates to femininity. We turn next to the role of sugarcane in the enslavement of Africans and their resistance in Jamaica during Tacky’s Revolt (1760-1761) as students examine the history, artistic representation, and commodification of sugar by European colonial powers. For the final research project, students will make a researched argument about the meaning of sweetness in a cultural, social, or scientific context. Topics may be as varied as student interests: the class politics of the New York City soda ban, the role of taste in memory formation and recall, or the marketing of dessert cookbooks like Alison Roman’s Sweet Enough (2023).

 

Tale of Two Democracies

Durba Chattaraj

A year after the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, polls reveal that nearly two thirds of Americans believe their democracy is “in crisis and at risk of failing,” despite more than a decade of increasing voter participation. In India–the world’s most populous democracy–hundreds of millions continue to cast their vote, yet observers like Freedom House note breakdowns in its courts, legislature, and protection of civil liberties–echoes of American criticisms of their own system of governance. What beyond elections allow democracy to thrive? What can the world’s two largest democracies learn from each other in this moment, and what exchanges have they had in the past? We begin by analyzing the intersection between India’s film industry and the American world of hip-hop in the film Gully Boy. Next, we use the 1970 US Women’s Strike for Equality as a case study for investigating the relationship between conflict and power in protests, social movements, and transcultural democratic practices. Students conclude the semester by making a researched argument about a cultural or political exchange of their choosing. Sample topics might include Gandhi’s civil disobedience as inspiration for Martin Luther King, Jr, John Dewey’s influence on India’s constitution, or the politics of yoga. 

 

This Course is Out to Get You

Ardon Shorr

Stonehenge was built by ancient aliens. COVID-19 was FAKE NEWS. The election is rigged; the economy is rigged. The moon landing was filmed on a Hollywood soundstage — that is, if you even believe in the moon. Why do people believe conspiracy theories? And how do we know when to trust experts and when to be skeptical of authority? Why does confronting new evidence change some people’s minds, but leave others even more entrenched in their beliefs? This writing seminar explores how we know what we think we know. We begin with the documentary Behind the Curve, examining how Flat Earthers support their claims using scientific methods. We turn next to secret surveillance, entering the legal, historical, and psychological debates around the FBI’s attempt to infiltrate and disrupt American social movements. Finally, students pursue their own intellectual interests as they craft a research paper investigating a conspiracy theory of their choice, placing it in political, cultural, or artistic context. Potential topics range from whispers of Illuminati to the prophecies of Q, from Russian disinformation on AIDS to covert CIA assassination programs. If you’ve read this far, you already know too much. Cover your webcam before it’s too late.

 

Time’s Mirror

Alena Wigodner

In 1953, French archaeologists uncovered a 2,500-year-old tomb filled with objects only a great and wealthy leader would have. But the skeleton itself seemed to be female and was wearing women’s jewelry. Was it the wife of a leader, buried with markers of her husband’s status? Or perhaps the skeleton of a small man wearing ritual jewelry? The scientists could not imagine it was in fact a woman who had ruled this ancient society. How do our own experiences of gender, power, or race shape our perspective on the human experience more broadly? When peering back in time–or trying to glimpse the distant future–to what extent do we only see our own reflection? We begin this Writing Seminar by analyzing displays of gender and their significance in ancient burials. We turn next to Monsanto’s 1957 vision for a “house of the future” and examine how Americans imagined the impact of emerging technologies on family dynamics. For the research project, students identify a scholarly or fictional study of a community, investigating how its author puts the present into dialogue with the distant past or future. Examples include the immigrants in ancient Teotihuacán; ancient Scythian warriors and myths of the Amazons; Battlestar Galactica; and Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear.

 

Unlocking the Double Helix

Beth Stroud

Genomes living and extinct--variously described as source code, the “Book of Life,” and the very essence of identity--have never been easier or cheaper to access. From unlocking family secrets and tailoring cancer treatments, to engineering drought-resistant crops and resurrecting the woolly mammoth, how do assumptions about and uses of the double helix impact individuals, communities, and broader ecologies? How does language about lineage and natural selection shape our understanding of DNA and what it can do? To what extent can the human genome reveal who we are and what we’re capable of doing? We begin this Writing Seminar by scrutinizing metaphors of inherited criminality in The Jukes, a landmark family study that contributed to late 19th-century discourses about eugenics. Next, we analyze the marketing of at-home genetic testing kits and what these consumer products promise to reveal about identity and belonging. For the final project, students will make a researched argument about a depiction or use of DNA in contemporary life. Possible topics include the Innocence Project’s reliance on DNA evidence to exonerate the wrongfully convicted, new technologies allowing dog owners to clone their beloved pets, and genetic tests for establishing membership in Native American tribes and First Nations. 

 

Weird Weather

Diana Newby

An unprecedented tornado devastated central London in 1091; temperatures plummeted worldwide following the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815; an extraordinarily dry monsoon season triggered famine throughout India in 1899. Strange and unpredictable weather has shaped the course of human history since long before the modern era of climate chaos. How do we attempt to make sense of “weird weather”? And what are the implications of using climate to explain the past, present, or future trajectories of human life? In this Writing Seminar, we begin by analyzing media coverage of the 1930s Dust Bowl in light of Amitav Ghosh’s reflections on turning catastrophe into narrative. Next, we turn to unstable ecologies in the Middle East and North Africa, entering scholarly debates about the relationship between climate and political self-determination. For the research project, students identify a past or present community dealing with weird weather’s consequences and place the community’s response in social, scientific, or economic context. Topics might include the apocalyptic British poetry that emerged following the “Year Without a Summer,” the new safety building standard established after the 2011 Joplin tornado disaster, or Tuvalu’s move to become the first “digital nation” as rising sea levels threaten the island.