Writing 3: Syllabus

WR3 | Syllabus

Post-apocalyptic Fiction, Film, and Art

“Apocalypse, we propose, is never a locatable event but rather an imaginative practice that forms and deforms history for specific purposes: an aesthetic that does as much as it represents. Apocalyptic art may represent an imagined future, but it acts in and upon the present” (451).

— Hessica Hurley and Dan Sinykin, “Apocalypse: Introduction”

Course Description

Why do we feel such an attraction to disaster? Why do we produce novels, films, and other forms of art that contemplate the end of humanity? Scholars from many disciplines have offered theories about the appeal and meaning of such spectacles of apocalyptic destruction. We will read some of this critical literature, examining views from disciplines such as psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and religion. In addition to these assigned readings, each of you will engage in your own original process of inquiry on a related topic of your choosing. You will present your findings frequently to the community of scholars in our class, sharing and discussing your research discoveries and insights. Ultimately, you will produce a lengthy work of original scholarship that will contribute to this field of inquiry.

Health Information & Resources

Health Information
Classroom Safety
  • Please do not attend class if you have a fever, feel ill, or have any symptoms of COVID-19.
  • If you succumb to a respiratory illness: please wear a mask and follow CDC guidance.
Course Policies
  • If you miss class or a tutoring session due to illness, please email me to receive makeup information.
Health & Wellness Resources
Mental Health & Wellbeing Resources

The academic environment is challenging, our terms are intensive, and classes are not the only demanding part of your life. There are a number of resources available to you on campus to support your wellness, including:


Tips on Surviving the NH Winter

If you hail from a more temperate climate, then you are in for something completely different this term in Climate Zone 5a. Here’s my hard-won advice on some things that will make your time here more enjoyable and safe:

A good coat

You probably think you have a solid winter coat. But if you are from a climate like California or Texas, you probably don’t. You need something serious—a coat insulated with goose down or its synthetic equivalent. Find something that is rated to negative temperatures. The coat should also be windproof or you are just wasting your time. A good rule of thumb: if the coat is puffy and ugly, then it’s warm.

Mittens

Gloves are for rookies and chumps. What you need are a really good pair of mittens. Your fingers need to stay close together like a happy family to keep warm. Get something insulated and waterproof.

Insulating layers

If you plan to stay outside for an extended length of time, you should look into some insulating layers (aka: thermal underwear). This stuff will make you bulletproof.

Face covering

When it is 10°F and the wind is howling, your uncovered face will get utterly destroyed. Get a neck gaiter that you can pull up over your mouth and nose to keep your face from getting lashed by the winds on these brutal days.

Snow boots

You are going to have to walk though snow and slush during winter and sloppy mud in the spring. Sometimes it is pretty deep. You need some waterproof muck boots that are at least mid length for bad days. Look, there’s no way to avoid this: these are ugly and utilitarian. But if you try to remain a fashion plate, you are going to really pay for it by ruining your good shoes and getting frozen toes. These boots also need to have a really aggressive tread on them. Otherwise, you are going to slip and fall down a lot. Everyone seems to think that the iconic Bean Boot is the answer. These people are very wrong.

Spikes / Crampons

Often we get an ice storm or ice-forming conditions in Hanover. On these occasions it is not just dangerous but impossible to walk around on the sidewalks and streets. Even the best snow boots won’t save you in these conditions. On these days you need a pair of spikes. I’ve tried most of the products on the market. The best by far are made by Khtoola. This company makes serious mountaineering gear, but for everyday use, their EXOspikes will take excellent care of you. I’ve waked on solid ice for miles with these and never even slipped. These fit over your boots or shoes and provide four-wheel drive for your feet. Get a size up from your normal shoe size if you plan to wear these on big snow boots.

Vitamin D3

Your body synthesizes vitamin D when sunlight is absorbed by your skin. However, during the dark winter months we mostly stay indoors, which can lead to low levels of this important hormone. Without enough vitamin D you may experience a medical condition called SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, which gives you symptoms indistinguishable from depression: hopelessness, sadness, loss of interest in activities, difficulty concentrating, etc. Buy a big bottle of vitamin D3 and take it daily during the winter months. There’s a lot of snake oil out there in the world of supplements, so buy a name-brand product. I use Nature Made D3.

Light Therapy

Consider purchasing a light therapy lamp to regulate your circadian rhythm and boost mood during the darker months. Use the lamp during the early daytime hours only and follow this advice from the Mayo Clinic. You can get a decent light box for around $20.

Skin Care

You are going to experience really dry skin. Especially your hands. I have tried everything and have found the greatest product of all time: CeraVe Healing Ointment. This stuff is the bomb balm. Winter laughs at Jergens.

Humidifier

The winter air is extremely dry. In extreme cases you will start getting nosebleeds. Get a cheap humidifier for your room and run it at night to get some moisture back in your life. Or you could fill shallow pans with water and put them on top of your radiator for a similar effect.

Course Objectives

Writing 3 continues our focus on inquiry, critical thinking, and argumentation. The course additionally involves an introduction to academic research. Our libraries hold an impressive collection of traditional and electronic research tools as well as hundreds of thousands of books, journal articles, and assorted media. Navigating this ocean of information can be intimidating; however, excellent research skills are fundamental to your academic training. Therefore, we will spend a significant amount of time learning how to perform academic research and use our library resources effectively. By the end of this course, you should be able to do the following:

  1. Formulate research questions and keywords that may be used to guide a research process.
  2. Discover background information on a topic using reference materials.
  3. Locate books, periodicals, and other physical media within library collections.
  4. Locate electronic databases and query them with precision.
  5. Understand the importance of the process known as “peer review.”
  6. Critically evaluate sources for credibility and suitability for research.
  7. Use bibliographic software and a research journal to track and manage references.
  8. Craft a lengthy argument that contributes to an ongoing critical conversation.

Required Texts

Link Purpose
No Silo Course website, syllabus, readings, assignments, the Open Handbook.
Canvas Submit assignments, contact others, view media.
Course Readings A Google Drive with our course readings.
Author Pages A research archive built by our class.
Tutor Zone Resources for the 2-3 Tutor
The End Random aphorisms on the (post)apocalyptic
FAQs Frequently asked questions about the course

Academic Honesty

All work submitted for this course must be your own and be written exclusively for this course. The use of sources (ideas, quotations, paraphrase) must be properly documented. Please read the Academic Honor Principle for more information about the dire consequences of plagiarism. If you are confused about when or how to cite information, please consult the course handbook or ask me about it before submitting your work.

| Since all work submitted for this course must be your own, the use of any artificial intelligence is not allowed. Any use of a LLM-based AI to brainstorm, outline, write, or edit assignments of any kind is an academic integrity violation. Similarly, students must read, summarize, and analyze our course readings without assistance from AI-derived technologies. These AI programs include, but are not limited to, bots like ChatGPT, Bard, and Claude or AI-based writing assistant tools like Grammarly, Quillbot, and WordTune.
Some Thoughts on Generative AI and Writing

While Generative AI certainly has a place in many fields and disciplines (and I’m genuinely excited about aspects of it myself), I believe that it is fundamentally in conflict with the goals of the writing classroom.

My sense has always been that the writing classroom is the best place to develop a host of important skills and abilities, including critical thinking, metacritical analysis (thinking about our thinking), information literacy, creativity, communication skills, and various research competencies.

An overreliance on AI tools to complete tasks that we would normally describe as “thinking” or “analysis” or “research” will have a tremendously negative effect on our development as individuals. If we use these tools merely to get answers, not encourage us to develop understanding or skill; or if we allow them to generate a mere appearance of thought and expression, rather than its substance, then what will become of us? I mean this literally: what will we be?

It only makes sense to cut corners with an AI tool if we imagine education as a kind of economy rooted in the exchange of educational products that receive compensation in the form of grades. However, this is an impoverished vision of the purpose of education. I am struck by Lydia Cao and Chris Dede’s thoughts on this point:

“An education that is heavily focused on products reduces learning to a transaction, exchanging a product for a grade, rather than providing a transformative human experience. Learning is much more than generating a product; in fact, the essence of learning is in the process – the journey rather than the destination. Learning to write is not primarily about producing a well-structured piece of text but about developing the capacity to organize one’s ideas, connect these to others’ ideas, analyze claims, synthesize insights, and fulfill our fundamental need to communicate with and learn from others.”

Echoing this point about the process of education, Ted Chiang offers a perfect metaphor to explain the problems with relying on GAI:

“[T]eachers don’t ask students to write essays because the world needs more student essays. The point of writing essays is to strengthen students’ critical-thinking skills; in the same way that lifting weights is useful no matter what sport an athlete plays, writing essays develops skills necessary for whatever job a college student will eventually get. Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way.”

Some of the problems and struggles that come with education are actually things that we shouldn’t try to get rid of. Side-stepping these difficulties renders the entire enterprise of education pointless. Joshua Thorpe explains:

“[AI] tools suddenly make it really easy to do all kinds of things, very quickly, that used to be hard and slow. Many of these things used to be essential to the intrinsic value of university work—planning, decision-making, struggling, searching, assessing sources, grappling with difficult texts, and learning to accept the discomfort of uncertainty. AI tools remove problems. But some of the problems they remove are useful to have and to solve as a human. Students will find it really difficult to distinguish between what problems are good to solve quickly with AI, and which problems are more valuable to solve themselves.”

I would argue that Thorpe doesn’t go quite far enough: not only are many of these problems and difficulties “useful to have and to solve as a human,” these struggles are precisely the things that make us human and allow us to become more humane. Among the many problems I believe you should solve yourself if you are interested in being intelligent and growing as a human being:

  • reading widely,
  • interpreting the meaning of texts and other artifacts,
  • inventio (discovering your own arguments and ideas),
  • research/inquiry,
  • evaluating sources of information,
  • planning and organizing writing,
  • drafting writing,
  • revising your writing (and evaluating feedback from others on your writing).

AI can disrupt or replace many or all of these processes; the consequences of doing so, however, are exceedingly grim.

If you have any questions about this policy or are not sure if a resource you have found will violate this policy, please ask me.

Attendance Policy

Regular attendance is expected. Bracketing religious observance, serious illness, or personal tragedy, no more than three unexcused absences in a single term will be acceptable for this course. This policy applies to:

  • regular class meetings
  • assigned X hours
  • Tutor meetings

Four or more unexcused absences may result in repercussions ranging from significant reduction in GPA to failure of the course. If you have a religious observance that conflicts with your participation in the course, please meet with me beforehand to discuss appropriate accommodations.

| As I mention in the Health Information & Resources section above: if you are very ill, please don’t be a hero by dragging yourself into class to avoid an absence. I prefer that you consider the health of the others in our class and stay home if you have a fever or are possibly contagious. If you experience an illness or other human problem of the sort that exceeds three absences, I will definitely listen and try to work out something with you. Of course, this may not be possible if your emergency is so prolonged that it prevents meaningful participation and commitment to the course.

Typical Weekly Workflow

Here is a list of the typical assignments and activities that we will do each week:

  1. Before we meet to discuss a reading as a class, each of you should carefully read and critically engage the text on your own—interrogating, analyzing, and questioning the arguments, ideas, and assumptions you discover there. What do you see? What do you think?

  2. As you read, I ask that you annotate the text—that is, mark up the text by adding meaningful symbols, marginal notes, and questions on the document itself. Note: this requires that you print out the text before you begin reading it. Bring this annotated copy of the reading with you to class to help you engage in the group discussion and analysis.

  3. After making your annotations, take critical notes on the text in your field notebook. These notes will be valuable to you later, when you write your essays (and perhaps further off in the future). Bring your field notebook(s) to every class meeting.

Here are longer, more detailed, descriptions of these three activities:

1. Annotating Texts

Rather than use a laptop or tablet to read our course readings, I ask that you print them out and annotate them as part of your preparations for class. Annotation refers to the process of marking up a text by adding your own words and symbols to the document itself. There is no right or wrong way to mark up a text, but you should develop a system that you are comfortable with and try to stick with it. These annotations are flags to draw the attention of your future self to certain important features of a text at some later time. One key objective during annotation is to notice a text’s structure by flagging its main components—the thesis, argumentative claims, and pieces of evidence. As we try to understand these structural components of a piece of writing, we should also be evaluating and interrogating it. We can use the margins of the text to ask questions, make brief notes, indicate confusion, define unfamiliar terms, and make connections to other texts. This work serves two purposes: first, it helps you maintain a critical focus as you read; second, it helps you later if the text must be used for study or your own writing. If you plan on being successful in college, the ability to rigorously annotate texts is perhaps the most helpful and important skill you can develop.

| Further advice and caveats about annotation may be found in the “Annotation and Critical Reading” chapter of the Open Handbook.

2. Critical Reading Notes

After annotating a text, create an entry in your field notebook and take critical notes. Recent research reveals that taking notes by hand results in a significant boost to attention, brain activity, learning, and recall. In short, experiments show that students who take notes by hand are more successful than students who do so on computers.

I’d like you to give this a try; you may later decide to memorialize these notes in electronic form, either by retyping or scanning to .pdf. Take detailed notes on each of our course texts. Since you will write essays about these texts, these notes will be of significant help to you later. Your aims here should be to:

  • Reduce the entire argument to its bare essentials using paraphrase, summary, and selective quotation—carefully documenting page numbers during this activity.

  • Interrogate the text by asking questions, raising objections, and making observations.

  • Connect and compare the reading to other readings or ideas.

  • Define any unfamiliar terms or references.

  • Link the text to any outside research you perform.

At the end of this rigorous process you should have a simplified version of the essay as well as a number of critical observations, questions, and ideas that emerged in the process of reading.

| For more detailed information on the creation and purpose of these notes, read the chapter on “Critical Notes” in the Open Handbook.

3. Field Notebook Entries

Your field notebook is a record of your thinking and observations, a chronicle of your attempts to know and understand. It should contain notes, ideas, and questions about our course readings, class discussions, and anything else that seems worth noting and remembering as you explore various fields of inquiry. I like the metaphor of the field notebook as it conjures scenes of exploration, discovery, encounter, excitement, danger.

Keep a tight record of your mind’s travels.

Our objective for the field notebooks is to explore meaning, discover the argumentative structure(s) of our readings, evaluate supporting evidence, ask probing questions, connect to other readings, take notes, plan revision, and think critically. With luck, your notebook will become a central resource in our class discussions and an indispensable aid to you as you craft your essays. I’m providing these notebooks to you; if you fill yours up, just ask for another one.

Grading

A few years ago I decided to quit grading, mostly as an emergency response to the realities of teaching during the COVID pandemic. Although I didn’t know it at the time, a large body of research concludes that grading is not just counterproductive, but actively harmful to the process of education. As Jesse Stommel writes, grades are “not a good measure of learning, they inhibit intrinsic motivation, and they create a competitive environment between students and hostile relationships between students and teachers.” Perhaps the foremost scholar on grading, Alfie Kohn, argues that grading produces three predicable effects in students: “less interest in learning, a preference for easier tasks, and shallower thinking” (xiv). If you think back on your experiences in high school, you may very well discover evidence of these effects in your own life.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

For the reasons described above (and others we will explore together), this class will not feature traditional letter grades for evaluation. To be sure, I will give you feedback and encouragement and promise to assist you in any way that I can. I will ask a lot of questions and try to push you to experiment and grow as a writer. You will receive similar feedback from your colleagues in the class. And you will also perform reflective self-evaluations of your writing, thinking, and effort. But at no point will this complex and important work be reduced to a percentage or letter grade.

At the end of the term we will reflect together on your progress, effort, participation, and performance; we will decide together what final grade to enter into Banner. This discussion about your performance in the class will involve our mutual reflection on the following topics:

  • Participation
  • Attendance
  • Collaboration and sharing
  • Late, incomplete, missing work
  • Growth
  • Effort
| There is one important caveat. To earn this right (and to pass the course), all assignments must be completed and a solid attendance record must be kept.

Major Assignments

1. Formal Research Essay

You will write one formal research essay. The project will involve many of the core competencies we developed in the previous term including argumentation, critical thinking, close reading, synthesis, and theoretical analysis. You may write on any topic you wish, so long as it is a contribution to our course conversation and theme. Please discuss your ideas with me before you get too far along. I am happy to meet with each of you to discuss ideas and help formulate a research plan.

Essay requirements:

  • The essay must be submitted in the Chicago format.

  • It must contain a minimum of 15 peer-reviewed sources.

  • Sources that are not peer-reviewed may also be used. However, be judicious if you do so.

  • Your essay should be at least 3,700 words, or about 15 pages in length.

2. Research Workshops

Several workshop assignments will help you gain confidence with using library resources, constructing bibliographies, and managing large research projects.

3. Presentations

You will make one formal presentation at the conclusion of the term to explain your research project to our class. You will also make a number of informal presentations about your ideas, research, and writing as they evolve over the term. These informal presentations may not be announced, so be prepared to discuss your project at any time.

4. Author Page

Each of you will curate a webpage dedicated to your research project. We will call this site your Author Page. You may create this page as a shared Google Doc or use the Dartmouth Journeys platform. After creating your page, link to it on the course research projects page so that we may locate it. We will use these Author Pages to view your project as it evolves over time. One of your most important responsibilities this term is to keep this page updated. Your author page should contain the following:

  • a short research proposal/statement of no more than 250 words.
  • a running list of the keywords and subject headings you are using to search for sources.
  • an annotated bibliography of all the sources used to construct your research project.
    • Use permalinks to link your sources to their location online in the library system.
  • a current draft of your research essay.
  • a weekly reflective “blog” post about the progress of your research project (see below).
I have created a model author page here that you may use as a template.

5. End-of-Week Reflection

Compose a weekly reflective “blog” post on your Author Page that details your efforts that week to further your research project. At first these posts will likely be searching, inarticulate musings as you fumble through possible ideas for a research project. However, as your research intensifies and comes into sharper focus, these posts should begin to include the specific steps that you took that week to further the project in some way. What kind of research problems or difficulties did you encounter? What sources did you locate? How is the project evolving as you read and think more deeply on your subject? In essence, I would like you to blog your experiences as a novice researcher engaged in your first big research project. Significantly: the things you say in your posts will help me, the tutor, and your colleagues as we try to assist you with your project.

Help With Your Writing

There are many sources of help for your writing assignments. I am happy to meet with you all term during my office hours or by appointment. Each of you will meet with our tutor for 45 minutes per week to go over your writing and plan revision. If you require further help, the Writing Center offers excellent peer tutoring on all phases of the writing process—from generating ideas to formal citation.

Students With Disabilities

Students requesting disability-related accommodations and services for this course are required to register with Student Accessibility Services (SAS; Getting Started with SAS webpage; student.accessibility.services@dartmouth.edu; 1-603-646-9900) and to request that an accommodation email be sent to me in advance of the need for an accommodation. Then, students should schedule a follow-up meeting with me to determine relevant details such as what role SAS or its Testing Center may play in accommodation implementation. This process works best for everyone when completed as early in the quarter as possible. If students have questions about whether they are eligible for accommodations or have concerns about the implementation of their accommodations, they should contact the SAS office. All inquiries and discussions will remain confidential.

Symbol Legend

Symbol Note
Student presentations
Homework
In-class work
A new major assignment
Workshop assignment
Assignment due
Print out work and bring to class
Peer work, in pairs or groups
Discussion topic
In-class lecture
Course reading download (.pdf)
Learn something new
Question of the day™
Friday Soap Box
Film
Audio lecture
Research progress checkup

Schedule of Readings and Assignments

1 - Course Introduction

Monday, 1.6

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Class reunion, course overview, syllabus tour, housekeeping matters.

Wednesday, 1.8

Homework

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Review the Introduction to Academic Research reading.
  • Discuss reading

Friday, 1.10

Homework

  • In your field notebook, make a list of any film, television show, or work of literature in the post-apocalyptic genre that you find interesting or memorable.
  • Also make a list of any actual fears that you have about the end of the world.

In-class work

  • Friday Soapbox
  • Review the Introduction to Academic Research reading.
  • Discuss possible research ideas

2 - Introduction to Library Research

This week we will continue our overview of library research, learning some basic skills for querying catalogs and databases. We will also learn about a form of analysis known as cultural studies (much of our course and its readings are inspired by this breed of criticism).

Monday, 1.13

Homework

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Lecture: Searching with Precision
  • Workshop 1: Searching with Precision | This workshop will help you learn how to query databases and catalogs with precision, saving you time and headaches.

Wednesday, 1.15

Homework

In-class work

Friday, 1.17

Homework

  • Introduction to Cultural Studies | This class will frequently use a mode of analysis associated with cultural studies. This audio lecture provides a brief introduction to this form of inquiry/analysis.

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Discuss lecture.

Due


3 - Disaster, Apocalypse, & the State of Nature

Philosophers and social scientists have attempted to explain the origins of civilization and the rise of the modern state for centuries. A key concept in this conversation is the “state of nature,” a hypothetical condition where human beings lived without government. In this primitive state there is no law or authority, only anarchy and the pervasive threat of violence. Thinkers of the past such as Hobbes and Locke used this hypothetical condition to explain why the state of nature no longer exists and how civilized orders came to be. Today, however, many writers, filmmakers, and social scientists imagine apocalyptic scenarios of disaster wherein society regresses again to chaotic states of nature. Why do we produce such imaginings? What purpose(s) do they serve? And why have these narratives become so prominent of late?

Monday, 1.20

  • Martin Luther King Day. No classes. We will use the X-hour this week.

Tuesday, 1.21 (X-hour session)

  • Tuesday, 1.21 | X-hour | Section 1 @ 12:15-1:05
  • Tuesday, 1.21 | X-hour | Section 2 @ 1:20-2:10

Homework

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Discuss reading
  • Workshop 9: What is Peer Review? | This workshop helps you understand the purpose of peer review and how to recognize peer-reviewed articles and books.

Wednesday, 1.22

Homework

In-class work

Friday, 1.24

Homework

In-class work

  • Friday Soapbox
  • Discuss reading.
  • Research progress checkup.

Due


4 - The Apocalypse & the Other I

Cultural Studies scholars argue that post-apocalyptic narratives proliferate during periods of social crisis. During these moments of extreme social stress, cultures transmute fear, anxiety, or dread into popular art forms such as novels or films. Thus, by examining popular media produced during these particular historical moments we are afforded a glimpse of how a culture worked through difficult social problems, reacted to challenges to its foundational values, and related to its various “Others.” In this section we will examine two films, The Last Man on Earth (1964) and I Am Legend (2007), both adaptations of Richard Mattheson’s 1954 novel I Am Legend. What cultural anxieties or problems do these films articulate? What social solutions do they seem to offer? Significantly, how do the differences between these two films provide a metric for measuring the evolving concerns of America from the 1960s to today?

Monday, 1.27

Homework

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Discuss film.

Wednesday, 1.29

Homework

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Discuss reading.

Friday, 1.31

In-class work

  • Friday Soapbox
  • Discuss film, reading.
  • Research progress checkup.
  • Workshop 4: Works Cited or Bibliography | This workshop will help you gain familiarity with constructing a Chicago style bibliography for a research paper or project.

Due

  • Author Page: research proposal (250 words), annotated bibliography of current research.
  • Submit an end-of-week reflection to your Author Page.

5 - The Apocalypse & the Other II

Monday, 2.3

Homework

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Discuss film.

Wednesday, 2.5

Homework

  • Nope!

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Discuss film
  • Workshop 5: Cutting Corners in Research | The best researchers know how to cut corners and work efficiently. This lecture presents you with some tips that will save you time.
  • Workshop 6: "Getting Sh*t the Library Doesn't Have" | As a researcher you will encounter many problems, but one of the most annoying is discovering that some other person has rudely checked out your book. Sometimes our library doesn’t own a book or article that you want to read. What do you do when these things happen? You have many options that won’t cost you a dime.

Friday, 2.7

  • Friday Soapbox
  • Discuss film.
  • Research progress checkup.

Due

  • Update research proposal and annotated bibliography on your Author Page.
  • Submit an end-of-week reflection to your Author Page.

6 - The Zombie, Civil Rights, & Race

“[T]he true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilization represses or oppresses.”

—Robin Wood

Vampires, werewolves, and Frankenstein are all monsters of European extraction; the zombie, however, was made in America. This prompts several questions: Why was the zombie born here rather than someplace else? What is it about the Americas and their history that made the figure of the zombie possible and popular? What does it say about us and our culture that we have created precisely this type of monster? In this section we will attempt to answer these questions by tracing the evolution of the zombie—from its origins in the slave-based plantation cultures of the Americas through modern interpretations of the figure in contemporary literature and film. Significantly, the zombie of today differs markedly from its precursors in the cinema of the 30s, 40s, and 50s. In these earlier films the zombie was a figure within an imperialist discourse that expressed racist ideologies and the anxieties of post-slavery cultures throughout the Americas. However, just as the figure of the zombie had nearly been forgotten, a new form of the creature appeared in 1968 in George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. No longer was the zombie a folkloric figure born of the struggle between master and slave; now it was a cannibalistic creature that stalked the countryside in swarms, mindlessly searching for human flesh. How do we account for this sudden transformation of the zombie? What cultural “work” did the zombie perform?

Monday, 2.10

Homework

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Discuss film.

Wednesday, 2.12

Homework

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Discuss film and reading.
  • Workshop 7: Bibliographic Software / Research Journal | Over your career as a student and a professional you will encounter and make use of thousands of books and articles and assorted media. Many of these texts will be very useful to you later, if you take the time to save and organize them now. There is an app for that.

Friday, 2.14

Homework

  • Complete your essay draft.

In-class work

  • Friday Soapbox
  • Peer Review: During class time today you will meet with two of your colleagues to perform peer review.

Due


7 - Slow Violence, Eco-pocalypse, and Poverty

We tend to think of violence as an explosive event that erupts in a singular moment in time and space; however, scholar Rob Nixon argues that we must sensitize ourselves to what he calls “slow violence," a form of violence “that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all” (2). In particular, Nixon’s focus in his influential work Slow Violence is on climate disaster: the slow-moving catastrophes of global warming, poisoned groundwater, toxic waste, chemical exposure, deforestation, and species extinction. These catastrophes, Nixon argues, are difficult to apprehend or represent in narrative form because they take place over years, decades, lifetimes, generations; as “spectacle deficient” events, they struggle for representation in a media environment that is biased toward more sensational forms of violence. Yet, these forms of ecocide are forms of violence surely, ones that remain invisible to many of us because they principally affect the impoverished and forgotten global poor. How can we recalibrate our perceptions to recognize these forms of slow violence? How do we convert “slow violence” into narrative form so that we can communicate its dangers, raise public awareness, and mobilize efforts for change?

Monday, 2.17

Homework

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Discuss film.

Wednesday, 2.21

Homework

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Discuss film and reading.

Friday, 2.25

  • Question of the Day™
  • Discuss the film, reading.
  • Lecture: Managing Large Research Projects | How do you begin when you’ve collected a large pile of books and articles that will be parts of your research project? Often, a large collection of sources leaves you feeling paralyzed. This lecture gives you some ideas about how to process your research and start writing.

Due

  • Update research proposal, annotated bibliography, paper draft on your Author Page.
  • Submit an end-of-week reflection to your Author Page.

8 - TEOTWAWKI: Prepping for the End

Recent years have seen an explosion of “reality” television programming based in survival skills or challenges. Popular shows in this regard include game shows like Survivor and adventure shows like Man vs. Wild and Survivorman. Newer programming includes the Discovery Channel’s Dude, You’re Screwed, Alaska Bush People, Dual Survival, and the rather prurient Naked and Afraid. While these shows give viewers the vicarious thrill of braving the wilderness from the comfort of their armchairs, there has recently been an explosion in survivalist subcultures, known collectively as “prepping.” Preppers build bomb shelters and other fortifications where they stockpile food, supplies, firearms, and ammunition in preparation for TEOTWAWKI: The end of the world as we know it. A number of “reality” television shows have emerged in response to these cultural phenomena: Doomsday Preppers, Doomsday Castle, and Doomsday Bunker. The list of prepper fears is long: generalized civil unrest, total social collapse, global weather catastrophes, the return of Christ, peak oil, attacks using EMPs, solar flares, and, of course, zombies. Are these views largely fueled by paranoia or a desire for self-reliance? Do these fears and anxieties signify some larger, unarticulated criticism or anxiety about modernity or capitalism?

Monday, 2.24

Homework

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Discuss film and reading

Wednesday, 2.26

In-class work

  • Question of the Day™
  • Discuss film and reading

Friday, 2.28

In-class work

  • Friday Soapbox
  • Peer Review: During class time today you will meet with two of your colleagues to perform peer review
  • On Introductions.
  • Discuss research proposals

Due

9 - Drafting, Revising, Presenting

This week is dedicated to our presentations. Each of you will make a short presentation around 5 minutes in length. Your presentation may take any form you like, but consider your audience. Your fellow classmates have not read your essay or researched your topic. How can you help them understand your ideas and arguments? What context will they need to know? What terms or historical details do you need to unpack? Make sure to practice and time your talk so that you don’t go over the allotted time. Feel free to use a visual aid, such as PowerPoint slides or handouts.

  • Each of you should be prepared to present on Monday. I will have my son Hayden randomly number you to avoid any appearance of favoritism. He will get to practice his numbers as a result!

Monday, 3.3

In-class work

  • Presentation Group 1.

Wednesday, 3.5

In-class work

  • Presentation Group 2.

Friday, 3.7

In-class work

  • Presentation Group 3.

Due

  • Submit an end-of-week reflection to your Author Page.

10 - The End

Monday, 3.10

Due

Wednesday, 3.12

Due