An intensive, accelerated course satisfying concurrently the requirements of the UC Entry Level Writing Requirement and the first half of Reading and Composition. Readings will include imaginative, expository and argumentative texts representative of the range of those encountered in the undergraduate curriculum and will feature authors from diverse social and cultural backgrounds and perspectives. Instruction in writing a range of discourse forms and in the revision of papers.

Whether it is the threat of nuclear warfare, impending climate disaster, or the apocalyptic prophecies of various religious traditions, anticipating the imminent end of the world is a mode of thinking that is seeded deep within the collective consciousness of many civilizations. For thousands of years, the apocalypse has supposed to have been right around the corner, and anxieties surrounding its approach have manifested in fiction, film, poetry, politics and, more recently, computer science. Will nuclear weapons or climate upheavals render the world into a Mad Max-like hellscape? Will ChatGPT attain consciousness and wipe out humanity in order to protect its own existence? More importantly, what do these questions and depictions tell us about the cultures that are asking them? In this course you will learn to read and write as a way of participating in an intellectual community, both at Cal and beyond. You will learn to use writing as a way of thinking. Rather than approaching writing as some mystical, innate affinity with words, this course approaches writing as a craft that can be learned and developed.

Open to students who have not fulfilled the Entry Level Writing Requirement.

Requisites

• Students with 1-4 Terms in Attendance

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills