Training in writing expository prose. Further instruction in expository writing in conjunction with reading literature. Satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement.

This class will focus on the knowledge and practices of wisewomen also known as witches who were once considered central to the spiritual and physical lives of their communities. We learn about their work as healers, herbalists, midwives, medics, and mages through the record of the witch hunts across the early modern Atlantic world during which hundreds of thousands of women were accused and often brutally punished for their association with witchcraft. Grappling with an archive structured by a violent encounter between wisewomen and the law, we turn to feminist scholarship responsible for reclaiming the positive valences of the witch for modern times, as well as novels and poems re-imagining the witch and her positionality within dominant social paradigms. Thus, this is a story about gender, the history of capitalism, and modern science and medicine, but also one about scholarship and the work of interpretation required by research. Since this is a composition course, we also explore how some contemporary authors have turned to spells, magic, and ceremony to form better writing habits for themselves and unlock the transformative potential of (their) words.

Requisites

• Previously passed an R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Previously passed an articulated R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Score a 4 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Literature and Composition. Score a 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Language and Composition. Score of 5, 6, or 7 on the International Baccalaureate Higher Level Examination in English.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills