Spring 2025 WRTG 105 Sections

Instructor: Claire Jackson (English)

Meeting Times: TuTh 2:30-4:10

Description: On March 26th, 2024, Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after a cargo ship drove into it, and many conservative pundits were quick to blame this collapse on DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives. While blaming the collapse of a bridge on DEI is obviously a stretch, this rhetorical move is part of a larger conservative attack on diversity initiatives, as demonstrated by 80+ bills in 2023 attempting to ban DEI efforts in higher education and public offices. While those of us committed to equity and inclusion should rightfully be alarmed by this push, it is important to note that progressives have also long been critical of DEI efforts, arguing that such initiatives often tokenize difference and rarely lead to meaningful change. In this Writing Seminar, we will read a variety of texts and engage in archival research to examine the various ways diversity (and related terms like equity, inclusion, justice, belonging, access, etc.) is discussed and what/whose purposes these varying framings serve, as well as what impacts they have on our local Geneseo community and the world. Because WRTG 105 is meant to introduce you to the ways of writing in academia, we will also devote significant time to exploring the writing process through frequent drafting, revising, and collaborative learning. We will consider how writing works as a tool for critical inquiry and communication and work to further develop your critical reading and writing skills.

Instructor: Lisa D'Angelo (English)

Meeting Times: TuTh 8:30-10:10

Description: TBA

Instructor: Lisa D'Angelo (English) 

Meeting Times: TuTh 10:30-12:10

Description: TBA

Instructor: Rachel Snyder (English)

Meeting Times: MW 10:30-12:10

Description: In this writing seminar, we will read and discuss U.S. social protest literature. We will also devote significant time to exploring the writing process through critical reading, researching, drafting, revising, reflecting, and collaborating with peers.

Instructor: Rachel Snyder (English)

Meeting Times: MW 12:30-2:10

Description: In this writing seminar, we will read and discuss U.S. social protest literature. We will also devote significant time to exploring the writing process through critical reading, researching, drafting, revising, reflecting, and collaborating with peers.

Instructor: Gillian Paku (English)

Meeting Times: TuTh 12:30-2:10

Description: This section of WRTG 105 emphasizes the writing process through drafting, conferencing, revising, and reflecting. The primary literary text is Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and we will consider from the perspective of literary disability studies how writing is linked to and constructed by higher education.

Instructor: Beth McCoy (English)

Meeting Times: 12:30-2:10

Description: Guided by our course epigraph "If we're not your animals, if these are adult things, accept the risk. There is risk, Gatoi, in dealing with a partner," we'll read Octavia Butler's famous short story "Bloodchild" and apply that story to thinkING about learning how to do new things, finding one's stake in a complicated institution, and reflecting upon the complexities of educational risks, rewards, and what Butler calls "rent-paying." We'll place great emphasis on *process* as indicated by my constant highlighting of -ing: thinkING, conversING, considerING, reflectING as necessary preconditions for medical school, law school, activism, beING human. You'll work within frameworks that will enable you to understand the world as it has been and is and to imagine the world as it could be. You'll receive guidance and feedback so that you can take control of your own learning and thinkING. You'll get to talk with each other in large groups and small groups. You'll get to write anonymously. You'll get to write publicly. You'll get to write collaboratively as well as independently. Above all, you will be thinkING."

Instructor: George Goga (English)

Meeting Times: MW 4:30-6:10

Instructor: What is a witch? Today, witches evoke images of the Halloween industry—on page, screen, and in costume—but as an identity, the witch is much more complex. Historically, this question involved the European witch hunts of the early modern period. This course introduces students to the witch as an identity that can be created, traded, discarded, and destroyed to suit a variety of needs. Together, we will chart the evolution of this identity from its historical birth until today and predict its future as a potentially lasting feminist icon.

Instructor: Olaocha Nwabara (English)

Meeting Times: TuTh 12:30-2:10

Description: This course uses African short stories to examine the lives, experiences, and identities of global African people encapsulated in memories, events, or snippets in time. The stories are read in conversation with the authors (e.g. interviews, speeches, talks) as well as other supplemental literature (e.g. criticisms, histories, African identities and knowledge systems) in order to ground the stories in local and global contexts. Students will use this material to develop skills to read, critique, analyze and write effectively about the various narratives.

Instructor: Olaocha Nwabara (English)

Meeting Times: TuTh 2:30-4:10

Description: This course uses African short stories to examine the lives, experiences, and identities of global African people encapsulated in memories, events, or snippets in time. The stories are read in conversation with the authors (e.g. interviews, speeches, talks) as well as other supplemental literature (e.g. criticisms, histories, African identities and knowledge systems) in order to ground the stories in local and global contexts. Students will use this material to develop skills to read, critique, analyze and write effectively about the various narratives.

Instructor: Emilye Crosby (History)

Meeting Times: MW 8:30-10:10

Description: This section will focus on SNCC, the college-aged activists of the Civil Rights Movement era-reading their memoirs, oral histories, and documents to understand their activism, lives, and motivation.

Intructor: Theodore Sargent (History)

Meeting Times: TuTh 2:30-4:10

Description: TBA

Instructor: Timothy Carapella (History)

Meeting Times: MW 2:30-4:10

Description: TBA

Instructor:  David Hahn (Philosophy)

Meeting Times: TuTh 2:30-4:10

Description: TBA

Instructor: Thomas Barden (History)

Meeting Times: TuTh 6:30-8:10

Description: This course will explore the 'human side' of such figures as Alexander Hamilton, Mary Wollstonecraft, Napoleon Bonaparte, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Abraham Lincoln to examine how their upbringing, personal tragedies, and triumphs directly influenced their public personas and achievements. By delving into the personal sides of these individuals from the past, we will be able to breathe life into them and explore how it influenced their public life.

Instructor: Doug Baldwin (Math)

Meeting Times: MW 12:30-2:10

Description: This seminar examines the creation and breaking of secret codes, as reflected in literature, history, and modern use. Readings and discussions examine both fictitious and real code users and code breakers. Discussions and written exercises consider moral and social issues arising from those readings.

Instructor: Atsushi Tajima (Communication)

Meeting Times: MW 4:30-6:10

Description: Our contemporary life is saturated with mass media messages. Mass media consumption is our second-largest activity after sleeping, or some even spend more time with mass media than sleeping. This course explores the role of mass media in our lives, especially how they construct our knowledge and worldview. We critically examine-more precisely "decode"-various media texts, messages, formats, and beyond. Note that while studying texts in various forms is a major part of media studies, it is also the primary learning aim for this writing course. Thus, the course simultaneously devotes much time to exploring how we effectively use and craft our texts, messages, and arguments in an academic manner. We learn the effectiveness of communication both through exploring mediated texts and our own. As for academic writing style, the course employs social science writing practices (e.g., APA Style).

Instructor: Catherine Adams (History)

Meeting Times: MW 2:30-4:10

Description: This writing seminar explores how material culture and artifacts can serve as windows into the past. From ancient pottery shards to modern consumer products, the physical objects humans make and use offer valuable insights into history, society, and the human experience. In this course, students will learn to analyze material artifacts through close observation, historical contextualization, and interdisciplinary lenses. We will investigate how artifacts reflect and shape cultural values, social structures, economic systems, and technological development over time. Students will also consider the complex relationships between the material and the immaterial - how objects embody and communicate intangible ideas, beliefs, and knowledge. Through a series of close reading, research, and writing assignments, students will develop skills in critical thinking, historical analysis, and persuasive argumentation. By the end of the seminar, students will be able to apply material culture studies to ask and answer compelling questions about the past, present, and future of human civilization.

Instructor: Stephen Miskell (Business)

Meeting Times: TuTh 10:30-12:10

Description: Economic issues are essential to our daily lives. When you read or listen to the daily news, economic ideas and problems are mentioned prominently. This course will provide students with the opportunity to learn and think critically about economic issues that affect us an individuals and as citizens of the world's largest economy.

Instructor: Stephen Miskell (Business)

Meeting Times: TuTh 12:30-2:10

Description: Economic issues are essential to our daily lives. When you read or listen to the daily news, economic ideas and problems are mentioned prominently. This course will provide students with the opportunity to learn and think critically about economic issues that affect us an individuals and as citizens of the world's largest economy.

Instructor: Michael Masci (Music & Musical Theatre)

Meeting Times: MW 12:30-2:10

Description: This seminar examines the development of the modern soundscape from the industrial cities of nineteenth-century Europe and America to the virtual soundscapes of today, considering how our interactions with these soundscapes, particularly in the form of changing listening practices, constitute our sense of self. Course topics include: the malleable category of noise and its vicissitudes in the modern era; the modern practice of silent concert listening; the growth of soundproofing materials; and the impact of the development of recorded sound on listening practices.

Instructor: Kurt Fletcher (Physics & Astronomy)

Meeting Times: MW 8:00-9:15; F 8:30-9:20

Description: What kind of future do we want? What makes us human? How will current technological, biological, political, or social trends play out? What kind of life do we want to lead? Authors often use science fiction to examine these questions. As readers, how do we respond? In this class we will read and discuss short stories by various authors related to specific themes. By wrestling with this material, students will improve their reading, listening, analyzing, and writing skills. Students will be encouraged to adopt a growth mindset about their own writing and about learning in general.

Instructor: TBA

Meeting Times: TBA

Description: TBA