3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

This course is focused on reading, analyzing, and, most importantly, producing writing about the American political experience and contemporary events in American politics. We will use scholarly, print, and new media sources from different sides of the political spectrum, drawing on political and literary theory to inform our discussions. We will then try to do better: Students will write and workshop a variety of pieces of different lengths and styles, spending in-class time on peer critique, presentations, and writing exercises, which they will compile into a writing portfolio. We will discuss and write op-eds, memoirs, long-form book reviews, commentary essays, and satire. Throughout, we will devote considerable class time to critique and discussion of students’ writing. Readings will include works by James Baldwin, William F. Buckley, Claudia Rankine, Hunter S. Thompson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alexander Chee, Angela Nagle, and Omar el Akkad. We will draw on political commentary from sources ranging from The Washington Post to Jacobin to The Onion, through to Facebook and Twitter. Throughout, we will consider a wide range of topics pertinent to writing about politics, including questions of the make-up of the public sphere and diverse audiences, the use of voice and language, the deployment of facts and rhetoric, the place of fiction and humor in political critique, and the rise of fake news and trolling.