Training in writing expository prose. Instruction in expository writing in conjunction with reading literature. Satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement.

How do we draw the line between justice and vengeance? This course explores how writers across a wide range of contexts have defined, represented, and negotiated the idea of revenge. In the 18th century BCE, Hammurabi's Code articulated the historically-resounding principle of "an eye for an eye." But can we really measure pain the way we can count off body parts? (And even then, is it really possible to consider one eye as 'equal' to another?) How can we determine whether one set of harms is commensurate with another? We will read a range of writers, from Shakespeare to Claudia Rankine to Elaine Chou, who probe these questions and interrogate the unruliness of what might seem on the surface to be a principle of straightforward exchange. Through these works, we will consider how dimensions like race, class, and gender both constrain the possibility of a truly 'just' vengeance and also conjure alternative visions for repairing the harms one has experienced. As an R1A, this course will also ask: How might writing be seen as a process that, not unlike revenge, is never fully complete—in that it asks us to come back again and again, through drafting and revision, to settle the score? We will develop our skills in essay writing and revision together through formal writing assignments, in-class writing exercises, reflective and creative activities, and peer review sessions.

Requisites

• Satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing Requirement

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills