This writing seminar satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement. The course is designed to offer students structured, sustained, and highly articulated practice in the recursive processes entailed in reading, critical analysis, and composing. Students will read five thematically related book-length texts, or the equivalent, drawn from a range of genres, in addition to various non-print sources. In response to these materials, they will craft several short pieces leading up to three longer essays--works of exposition and argumentation.

We will analyze apocalyptic and dystopian fiction and film. A subset of these works envision what the future might be if our illusory mastery over the natural world and its consequence, indifference to environmental or biological disaster, were to lead to social collapse. In representing how the social and natural worlds as we know them are destroyed, shredded, or reconstituted into some more elemental or primitive configuration, such works offer a rebuke against contemporary social life and politics. Specific reference points for this summer course are the current social and political crises precipitated by viral contagion in the hopes that we can understand what is happening to us now.

Requisites

• Enrollment is limited to students who have satisfied the UC Entry Level Writing Requirement.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills