This course will teach you the basic tools and concepts of narrative theory, a branch of literary theory that focuses on stories and story-telling. Using short stories as our primary examples, we will consider how analyzing narratives can provide deeper insight into questions of social justice and injustice, including racial, class, and gender difference as well as global distributions of inequality.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open only to first-year students.

Instructor: Y. Lee

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Fall

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes: This course satisfies the First-Year Writing requirement and counts as a unit toward the English major.

Why does art matter? Because images, sculptures and buildings shape our ways of understanding our world and ourselves. Learning how to look closely and analyze what you see, therefore, is fundamental to a liberal arts education. Within a global frame, this course provides an introduction to art and its histories through a series of case studies, from Egypt's Queen Nefertiti to Jean-Michel Basquiat's raw street art. Meeting three times weekly, each section will draw on the case studies to explore concepts of gender and race, nature and landscape, culture and power, repatriation, and other issues. Assignments focus on developing analytical and expressive writing skills and will engage with the rich resources of Wellesley College and of Boston's art museums. The course fulfills both the Writing requirement and the ARTH 100 requirement for art history, architecture, and studio majors.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Lynn-Davis

Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall

Notes: This course satisfies the First-Year Writing requirement and counts as a unit toward the major in Art History, Architecture, or Studio Art. Includes a third session each week.

We are living in an age of unprecedented access to information and have the means for immediate communication, thanks to advances in technology. Connecting to this virtual, ceaselessly changing world, however, often means turning away from the physical realm and prioritizing immediate reaction over thoughtful reflection. In this interdisciplinary course, we will investigate the boundless opportunities, and the real challenges, of living and writing in the age of distraction. How do we understand one another and ourselves as we toggle between the virtual and physical worlds? How do we create meaningful ideas and united communities? How does the reading and writing we do in the classroom inform what we read and write on social media, and vice versa? Students will consider these questions as they study literature, art, psychology, and technology, and as they explore both virtual spaces and physical ones, including the Wellesley campus and other area locales.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 12

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: H. Bryant

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Fall

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall

Notes: This course will provide extra academic support and intensive preparation for the demands of writing at the college level. It is appropriate for students who have not done much academic writing in English in high school, or who lack confidence in their writing. No letter grades given.

This course will approach the life and work of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg as a springboard for thinking about the experiences of Jewish women—especially those in the legal profession—in the 20th- and 21st-century U.S. We will read texts in several genres and disciplines, including histories of anti-Semitism and misogyny in American law, oral histories of female Jewish legal pioneers, and Justice Ginsberg’s own opinions and dissents. In addition, the course will use Justice Ginsberg’s career and experiences as a framework for examining broader issues at the intersection of feminism and popular culture. This will give us the chance to explore representations of her in various media such as Tumblr, children’s books, and Saturday Night Live.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open only to First-year students.

Instructor: Lambert

Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Every other year

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall

Notes: This course satisfies the First-Year Writing requirement and counts as a unit towards a major in Jewish Studies. Includes a third session each week.

Wellesley's mission is to educate those "who will make a difference in the world." In this course, we will study some of Wellesley's change-makers and learn about the College's role in shaping American higher education, promoting student wellness, advancing gender equality, influencing global politics, and improving public health. We will also examine the world that is Wellesley, with special emphasis on its historic buildings and unique landscape. Students will gain a deep understanding of Wellesley's story and their place in it, and they will practice making a difference in the world through their own writing.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 12

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Jeannine Johnson

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Fall

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall

Notes: This course will provide extra academic support and intensive preparation for the demands of writing at the college level. It is appropriate for students who have not done much academic writing in English in high school, or who lack confidence in their writing. No letter grades given.

How have writers and artists in the U.S. used the power of words, images, and sound to promote social change? We will explore this question by examining an array of texts within their specific cultural contexts,  including abolitionist narratives, intersectional feminist theory, and contemporary art from the Davis Museum. Students will analyze the rhetorical strategies of these works of protest literature, assessing their influence on laws, social practices, and cultural values. Students will also practice protest as they write for the change they want to see in the world today.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 12

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: E. Battat

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Fall

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall

Notes: This course will provide extra academic support and intensive preparation for the demands of writing at the college level. Section 01 is appropriate for students who have not done much academic writing in English in high school, or who lack confidence in their writing. Section 02 is reserved for students participating in the Wellesley Plus Program. No letter grades given.

This course will start with the premise that food is an essential ingredient in the making of selves, families, communities, regions, and nations. We will explore the ways that we celebrate food traditions, create new habits and tastes, and also respond to food problems (e.g. food scarcity and safety, climate change and land use, and the complex networks of food producers, servers, and consumers). Our readings will draw from a variety of different fields and perspectives, including literature, history, anthropology, and environmental studies, as well as various genres of food writing - the personal essay, the recipe, food blogs and podcasts, and scholarly essays on the intersections between food and culture.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 12

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Brubaker

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Fall

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall

Notes: Reserved for students participating in the Wellesley Plus Program. No letter grades given.

As college in the US becomes increasingly expensive and competitive, it’s worth asking what role institutions of higher education play in our society. Do they promote equity and equality? Do they transform or preserve the status quo? Do we prioritize their value as a private or as a public good, that is, as something that benefits the individual, or as something that the public invests in for some broader social goal? Students will read and write about the work of political theorists and educators in order to consider what the political and social mission of the university should be. We will also investigate the business of higher education, examining what happens when a college’s financial considerations might conflict with its educational mission. Other topics we’ll explore include the public financing of college, student debt, practices of for-profit universities, and the size of college endowments.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 12

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Krontiris

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall

Notes: This course will provide extra academic support and intensive preparation for the demands of writing at the college level. It is appropriate for students who have not done much academic writing in English in high school, or who lack confidence in their writing. No letter grades given.

American women often hear messages that they can "have it all"--a meaningful career, a loving family, and a fulfilling personal life. Yet popular culture is also filled with images of working mothers as stressed-out and miserable. In this course we will examine the highly varied aspirations, opportunities, and experiences of American women as they relate to work. We will consider some of the advice high-powered professional women have given to college graduates looking to advance their careers and "balance" that ambition with family life. We will read memoirs of low-wage earners, including many single mothers, about the particular challenges they face, and the limits that discrimination and systemic inequities place on their personal and professional goals. We will also explore what social scientists have to say about how cultural norms and economic markets generate the opportunities and constraints that women face. Finally, we will analyze how public policy at the local and national level influences the choices women and families face, and how those choices affect society more broadly.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 16

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Velenchik

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.

This course examines how different communities commemorate racial conflict in U.S. history, and how these historical memories operate as instruments of political power in the present. How do the stories we tell about the past impact policy decisions, social values, and collective identity? How do historical narratives support those in power, and are these narratives countered and contested? To explore these questions, students will examine a range of texts and cultural artifacts, including monuments, museum exhibits, landscapes, images, stories, and digital media. Students will build skills in analytical writing and scholarly research as they investigate the complex interplay between past and present.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: E. Battat

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Spring

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes:

"Boy meets girl" has long been a classic starting point, in both literature and the movies. This course will focus on romantic comedy in American cinema, with significant looks backward to its literary sources. We will view films from the classic era of Hollywood (It Happened One Night, The Lady Eve), the revisionist comedies of the 1970s and beyond (Annie Hall, My Best Friend's Wedding), and perhaps some of the decidedly unromantic comedies of recent years (Knocked Up). We will also read one or two Shakespeare plays, and a Jane Austen novel, to get a sense of the literary precedents that established the paradigms within which cinematic comedy operates.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Shetley

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall

Notes: No letter grades given.

Behind every name there is a story. In this course, we will explore those stories, learning the history and meaning of the labels that we affix to people, places, and things. We will pay particular attention to the power, responsibility, and consequences that come with naming and re-naming. We will examine recent controversies on college campuses involving the names of buildings, monuments, mascots, local flora, and landmarks. We will also study how the producers of all kinds of things–from poems to consumer products–use metaphor and neologism to refresh our understanding of the familiar, introduce us to the unfamiliar, and name the unnameable. In addition, we will explore how names and name changes can frame political discourse, sway opinion, influence behavior, and alter history.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Jeannine Johnson

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.

We will read a diverse range of modern science fiction stories with an aim toward understanding how these texts represent, critique, and imagine alternatives to existing social, political, economic, and environmental conditions. Through stories by writers such as Ray Bradbury, Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor, and Ted Chiang, we will explore how science fiction reimagines and challenges traditional ideas about ourselves, complicating easy distinctions between mind and body, human and machine, alien and native, self and other.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Brubaker

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.

Helen of Troy was a mythological beauty who was trafficked among men at the direction of the goddess Aphrodite, and she’s been held responsible for the outbreak of the Trojan War. Her character is usually defined as an object of desire (eros), and she is often seen as a passive figure at the center of larger events. Yet her role in ancient literature extends far beyond this objectification: she is at various times presented as a poet, a desiring subject, a metaphor for seduction, and a symbol for Athenian imperialism. In this course, students will encounter representations of Helen including those written by Homer, Sappho, Gorgias and Euripides. We will explore how these writers approached or avoided the interior experience of Helen, and what kind of agency and responsibility they attributed to her. As we study the complex persona of Helen, we will engage with contemporary approaches to understanding gender in ancient Greece. We will also explore the construction of eros, and how it relates to subjectivity, persuasion, and politics.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Gilhuly

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Fall

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall

Notes: No letter grades given.

When fiction blurs or crosses the line between our "real" world and "other worlds," the reader (as well as the narrator or main character) has entered the realm of "weird fiction," a genre that (broadly interpreted) contains "horror," "fairy tale," "science fiction," and "magical realism." We will read, write about, and write some of our own "weird" short stories by twentieth-century and twenty-first writers from all over the world.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open only to First-Year students.

Instructor: Sides

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.

Fascinating cultural practices are found not only in far-off places but are also embedded in the stories of our everyday lives. From our families and friends to taxi drivers and grocery clerks, everyone's personal history has something to teach us. Written accounts of culture (called ethnographies) are created from these narratives of how people live their lives. What extraordinary stories of culture are hidden in local, everyday places? What does it mean to write someone else's story? Or our own? What can we learn about culture by translating oral histories into words? With the understanding that some of the most interesting stories about human culture are told in our own backyards, we will approach writing through ethnographic storytelling, using our life experiences as our subject.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: J. Armstrong

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course. Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.

Have you ever wondered why some places evoke strong emotions, or why particular locations are charged with powerful meaning? Through the lenses of cultural geography and anthropology, this course explores the complex relationship between human beings, their emotions, and their environment. Key questions include: How can feelings for the places from our past and present be written into words? What are the qualities of a place that evoke certain emotions and memories? How do our memories of places change over time? What effect do collective memories have on individual remembrances? By reading memoirs, cultural histories, and critical essays, students learn how space and place can be translated into texts. Students will create their own written geographies of memory and analyze popular conceptions of space and place.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: J. Armstrong

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Fall

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall

Notes: No letter grades given.

In medieval Europe, biographies of saints were one of the most popular forms of literature, providing readers and listeners with examples of saintly behavior to emulate and sinful actions to avoid. More importantly the biographies narrated the lives of some of the most important members of medieval society. Whether living or dead, saints were seen as liminal beings able to move between this world and the next, communicating God’s will to their fellow Christians and harnessing divine power to perform miracles. This course will examine the lives of a diverse group of male and female saints from the Middle Ages (c. 300-1300 C. E.), utilizing the sacred biographies both as a means for understanding medieval society and as a springboard for addressing larger issues connected to the aims and function of biographical writing and the question of whether or not an “objective” biography is ever possible.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Ramseyer

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Spring

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.

In this course, we will examine the role that work plays in contemporary life and investigate how the value and experience of working get shaped by modern capitalism. We’ll start by reflecting on the character of the 21st century “gig” economy: Does working now mean something fundamentally different than it did for previous generations? Are we really working harder for less reward, as some argue? Is the recommendation to “pursue your passion” good advice? Next, we’ll examine theoretical perspectives on work, looking at how capitalism shapes the relationship between people and their work, how it structures our relationship to time and leisure, and how it codes certain forms of work as gendered labor. Last, we’ll take up questions about workers’ rights, worker power, and the extent to which we have a responsibility, as a society, to ensure stable and fulfilling work for all. This course asks students to think about the problem of work in both personal and structural terms, considering how it features in their own lives and how it reflects the larger social structures within which our lives play out.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Krontiris

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.

“Free time is shackled to its opposite,” writes the critic Theodor Adorno. In a world full of incessant demands for productivity, our free time, he observed, never feels truly free. We’re always watching the clock, trying to get the most out of our workday and then using our down time to ready ourselves to work again. We may be managing our time, but we don’t really own it. This course asks: what does it mean to live your life ‘on the clock’, and what might it look like to get ‘off’ of it? What would make your time feel like it is genuinely your own? We’ll seek answers to these questions first by exploring the issue of time management, reading theories about how to do it as well as histories and critiques of the impulse to maximize your time. Next, we’ll take up political and theoretical perspectives on how capitalism shapes our relationship to time. We’ll discuss where we get the idea that time is money and something we can spend or save. We’ll also consider what it means that our time is something we can sell and that someone else can own, and we’ll ask what the stakes are of commodifying time that way. Last, we’ll examine the idea and practice of leisure and explore what it takes for free time to be truly free.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Krontiris

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Spring

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.

In this seminar, we will explore how the human body was represented in medieval writing. We will also investigate how medieval authors considered the human body metaphorically as its own kind of text, or as the medium within which society’s codes and values are written. Together we will trace enduring themes associated with the body, such as: the relationship between the soul and the flesh; food and self-image; the tensions of the sexed body (gender, power, and sexuality); the political meaning of fashion and clothing; rituals connected to illness and death; and the link between human and the divine. The authors we will read include poets and philosophers, lawyers and monks, mystics and wanderers. By studying their work, we will trace how perceptions of the body shifted throughout medieval societies, and learn how medieval understandings of the body have shaped our own modern perceptions of it.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Surh

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Fall

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall

Notes:

“The personal is political” is a feminist rallying cry. It affirms, among other things, that we act and write out of our subjectivity, and that identity and politics are inseparable. In this course, we will explore our own relationships to sociopolitical matters such as reproductive rights, immigration and migration, prison abolition, environmental justice, and citizenship. We will also investigate the power structures that influence these areas and that make them resistant to meaningful change. Using This Bridge Called My Back: Writings from Radical Women of Color as our inspiration and guide, we will develop the critical thinking and writing skills needed to transform sociopolitical systems and to assert the value of our lives in them.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Maurissette

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes: No letter grades given (Fall); Mandatory Credit/Non Credit (Spring)

We are supposed to offer gifts without expecting anything in return; we are urged to give our best effort for the good of ourselves and others; we are born with, develop, and use our gifts in a range of contexts. But what, exactly, is a gift? In this course, we will explore perspectives on gifts in literature, religious texts, economic theories, and cultural criticism. We will consider questions such as: Why do we give things away? Are we morally obligated to use our resources or natural talents for the greater good? How do we decide who is worthy of a gift with no strings attached, and who must earn a subsidy or repay a benefactor? How does America’s reliance on philanthropy reinforce structural inequities? How do norms of generosity and reciprocity persist in a culture defined by contracts and debts? Can we imagine a society without money and based instead on a principle of giving?

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Moe

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes: No letter grades given (Fall); Mandatory Credit/Non Credit (Spring).

In this course, we will examine Black feminist essays and speculative fiction as resources for thinking about the future of feminism and its impact on the broader culture. These texts are helping to shift paradigms of what is understood by the term “feminism”. They also contain critical information that students need not just to survive but thrive in the future. We will discuss how these works offer new ways to think about kinship, gender, reproductive rights, abolition, and representations of selfhood. In addition, they will provide a springboard for looking inward to our own lives and perspectives, as we explore how writing, reading, and action are influenced by the personal. Indeed, if the “personal is political,” as Audre Lorde aptly stated, then what we write from our own experience can shape and change our world.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open only to first-year students.

Instructor: Maurissette

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall

Notes: No Letter Grades Given (Fall); Mandatory Credit/Non Credit (Spring)

What makes a world? And what makes a world beautiful, sustainable, inclusive, or just? At a time when humanity faces myriad global challenges, we can seek insight in writing that reimagines the world and helps us change it for the better. Reading the work of activists, philosophers, fiction writers, and political theorists, we will examine how past worlds shape those of the present and future. In particular, we will investigate the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in these different visions of the world, asking questions such as: Who enjoys freedom, and when? What is a “human right,” and should those rights be the basis of social organization? In what ways has the nation-state been a force for emancipation, and in what ways a vehicle of empire? What would it look like to live in a world that was fully feminist in its design, or that was built on reparations for past injustices, or that prioritizes the health of the planet above all? What are the conditions necessary for individuals and societies to undergo transformation, improve, and thrive?

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Moe

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall

Notes: No letter grades given.

Documentary film makes an implicit promise to its viewers to present reality. In this course, we explore the complexities of this promise by examining the interplay between objective fact and the documentarian’s subjective presentation of fact. Such an exploration will take us into questions concerning how we think about the ‘real’ and the ‘fake’ on film and beyond. We will also consider what documentarians owe to those who appear in their films and what ethical standards should apply to documentarians. Films (documentary and otherwise) may include Errol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line, Albert and David Maysles’ Grey Gardens and its fictional feature film offspring (starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange), Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man, Jian Fan’s Still Tomorrow, Nicole Lucas Haimes’ Chicken People, Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning and Sara Jordenö and Twiggy Pucci Garçon’s Kiki.

This class requires active and sustained participation from each student and will be speaking intensive; students will be supported in developing participation skills and guided to additional resources as needed.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: Rodensky

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall

Notes: No letter grades given.

Since the earliest days of public competition, sports have shaped conversations about social relations, power structures, and cultural values. Athletic performances express who we are individually and collectively, embodying the stories we tell about ourselves. This course explores how sports both reflect and influence our understandings of race, gender, class, sexuality, nation, ability/disability, religion, and more. We’ll examine these subjects through the lens of major events like the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Super Bowl, and the Boston Marathon, and of sports ranging from soccer to figure skating to wheelchair basketball. We’ll consider how art, commerce, and politics mingle on the athletic stage. We’ll compare sports and the performing arts, thinking about the narratives that we construct from these events and the role that spectators play in shaping them.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.

Instructor: A. Meyer

Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Spring

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.

This course will help students become more confident and proficient in the writing that they do at Wellesley and beyond. Students will design an individualized syllabus around a topic of interest to them and focus on the areas of writing in which they most want to improve. Building on what they learned in their 100-level WRIT course, students will become more adept at working with sources, developing their thinking, and communicating their ideas clearly and purposefully. There will be two class meetings per week. In one, all students will meet as a group with the professor, engaging in writing workshops and discussing some short common readings. In the second meeting, students will meet individually with a TA to discuss readings on their own topic and to work on their writing.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 12

Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the First-Year Writing requirement.

Instructor: H. Bryant (Fall); E. Battat (Spring)

Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature

Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring

Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit

Wellesley Online courses are designed to be highly interactive and encourage group discussion; they require participation through live online class meetings throughout the semester, as well as work in a collaborative environment.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the First-Year Writing requirement. Students who have taken WRIT 391 must receive permission of the instructor to enroll in this course.

Instructor: H. Bryant

Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature

Typical Periods Offered: Summer

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered

Notes:

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: Open to qualified students who have fulfilled the First-Year Writing requirement. Permission of the instructor and the director of the Writing Program required.

Instructor:

Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring

Units: 0.5

Max Enrollment: 30

Prerequisites: Open to qualified students who have fulfilled the First-Year Writing requirement. Permission of the instructor and the director of the Writing Program required.

Instructor:

Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring

Do you like to "people watch"? Do you wish you could translate your real-world experiences into narratives that are readable and relatable, and also intellectually rigorous? If so, you probably have an ethnographic writer hiding somewhere inside you, and this class will give them the opportunity to emerge. Ethnography, a “written document of culture,” has long been a key component of a cultural anthropologist’s tool-kit, and scholars in other fields have recently begun to take up this practice. We will read classic and contemporary ethnographies to better understand the theoretical and practical significance of these texts. Students will also have the unique opportunity to be the authors and subjects of original ethnographic accounts, and at various stages in the semester they will act as anthropologists and as informants. Although this course will emphasize an anthropological method, it is appropriate for students from various disciplines who are looking to expand their research skills and develop new ways to engage in scholarly writing.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 14

Crosslisted Courses: ANTH 277

Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the First-Year Writing requirement. Not open to First-Year students.

Instructor: Armstrong

Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes:

 This course supports senior McNair Program Scholars as they prepare to apply to graduate schools and post-baccalaureate programs. Students will become more confident, effective writers as they produce drafts of personal statements, fellowship applications, and other scholarly materials. Students in this course will engage in professional development activities, practice communicating their scientific knowledge and research results to different audiences, and gain the benefits of being part of a community of scholars. Open only to seniors participating in the McNair Scholars Program. 

Units: 0.5

Max Enrollment: 18

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Fulfillment of the First-Year Writing requirement. Open only to Seniors enrolled in the McNair Scholars Program.

Instructor: Jeannine Johnson, J. Dolce

Typical Periods Offered: Fall

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall

Notes:

The growing field of data humanism recognizes data as foundational to our economic, political, and social systems, while also seeking to recenter people in the process of its curation. In this course, we will explore the use of data through a humanistic lens, not only to better understand the critical role data plays in our lives, but also to discover how we can use data to become more humane. We will ask: if the word data comes from the Latin root for “the thing given,” by and to whom is it given? When exactly did data get “big”? What do we mean when we identify projects as “data-driven”? How can data intersect with social justice activism? And with art and storytelling? Students will engage these questions by drawing on the work of historians, cultural critics, journalists, social scientists, data analysts and designers, performing their own data tracking, and using their research to craft opinion pieces, reviews, reports, and other forms of public writing.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 12

Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors, or by permission of the instructor.

Instructor: Brubaker

Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis

Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Spring

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring

Notes:

Margaret Atwood professes that, “A word after a word after a word is power.” Propelled by the #MeToo movement, LeanIn, and the women’s march, women are baring their truths, beliefs, and experiences in an explosion of public words. In this seminar students will become immersed in the dynamic contemporary landscape of women’s writing, spanning memoir, poetry, journalism, and political commentary. Within an intimate workshop setting, students will develop their own voices through assignments that will include book reviews, op-eds, social media analyses, and interviews. By taking turns as writers and editors, students will become skilled in evaluating and fostering their own writing as well as the writing of others. This course takes as its premise the intensive Calderwood format of having students regularly produce, critique, and revise their and their peers' writing by alternating being writers and editors throughout the semester.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 12

Prerequisites: This course is open only to juniors and seniors; all students must have taken at least one 200-level course in the study of literature.

Instructor: H. Bryant

Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature

Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing

Typical Periods Offered: Spring

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered

Notes: