WRDS 150A Topics – Term 1

Instructor: Tom Bittner

Sections: 142

Available Times: 12:00 - MWF

This section of WRDS 150A looks into the possibility of designing and creating genuinely intelligent
systems and some of the implications of this project. We will investigate a selection of the most
influential research writings on this question taking them as our models of scholarly work in a number of
different academic disciplines. Our main aim will be to contribute to this tradition of inquiry by
completing a term project that takes up an interesting question related to this topic.
In pursuit of this aim, we will learn about the characteristic features of scholarly writing and about how
writers employ these features in specific research contexts. We will also, of course, practice using them
ourselves in the various assignments we produce for this course.

Instructor: Andrew Connolly

Sections:   191

Available Times:  7:00 - M - online

It’s hard to get away from celebrity news. Whether it’s Kanye’s political stunts in the White House, Ariana Grande’s public split with Pete Davidson, Demi Lovato’s struggles with addiction, or Prince Harry and Meghan Markle leaving the royal family and moving to Canada, our lives seem saturated with information about the famous. To read an endless supply of commentary, analysis, and gossip about celebrities, all you need is an internet connection. So why do scholars study celebrities? What do academics do differently?

In this course we will look at articles about celebrities written by academic scholars. They ask questions like: Why do people develop attachments to celebrities? Why do celebrities share so much about their lives? Why do companies hire celebrities to endorse their products? Do celebrities actually have an impact on the way we think and talk about sex, gender, and race? What kind of impact do celebrities have on politics? These questions are framed by the disciplines that the scholars work in, including cultural studies, sociology, economics, gender studies, and media studies. Each of these disciplines has its own methods and conventions. In other words, a particular discipline influences what scholars ask questions about, how they phrase the questions, how they answer the questions, and how they present their findings. As a result, this course will not only introduce you to the academic study of celebrities, it will also introduce you to the various disciplinary approaches to research and writing in the arts and humanities.

Part of this introduction will be training you to participate in scholarly discourse. You will learn how to do scholarly research: how to find the information you are looking for, how to understand it, and how to evaluate it. You will also learn how to write and present your findings in a way that engages with scholars in a particular discipline or disciplines. In addition to instruction in the classroom, you will have multiple written assignments that will give you a chance to experiment with different aspects of academic research and writing, and receive attentive feedback on your work. This training will help prepare you to succeed in your academic career.

Instructor: Kirby Mania

Sections:   113, 122, 152, 161

Available Times:   9:00, 10:00, 1:00, 2:00 - MWF

This course focuses on scholarly discourse published on the topic of environmental justice (EJ). It will consider discursive practices ranging from critical race theory, ecofeminism, social movement theory, media studies, geography, sociology, political ecology, and economics. Emerging as a movement in the early 1980s in the United States, EJ – now considered a global movement and a matter of global concern – recognizes the unfair distribution of environmental hazards on marginalized populations. Studies have shown that environmental harms disproportionately affect vulnerable social groups (which includes, but is not limited to, people of colour, indigenous communities, immigrants, women, minority groups, low-income communities, and climate refugees). EJ scholars research and monitor cases of socially produced environmental injustice and critically evaluate how multi-scalar policy decisions (such as neoliberal reform) continue to affect at-risk communities. EJ scholarship examines the social mobilization potential of communities against the uneven distribution of environmental hazards (or the lack of the fair distribution of environmental resources), and also considers how grassroots activists – in their campaign for greater recognition and participation in decision-making processes – hold governments and corporations accountable in their calls for justice. We will be tracing a number of scholarly conversations around the globalization of the Environmental Justice Movement (EJM) – looking at literature from the US, Canada, and other parts of the world – whilst discussing terms like environmental racism, climate justice, intersectionality, ecological debt, degrowth, food sovereignty, hydric justice, and environmentalism of the poor.

The course’s discursive approach invites students to engage with scholarly conversations and published research across a range of disciplinary perspectives. The course will entail writing about these research perspectives as well as producing research of your own.

Instructor: Susan Blake

Sections: 153

Available Times: 1:00 - MWF

Topic: Linguistic Landscapes — Language Endangerment, Maintenance, Documentation, Revitalization; Language & Identity

“Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations.”

Edward Sapir (1921, p. 220)

In this section of WRDS 150A, students will explore the types of questions and lines of inquiry pursued by language researchers in Anthropology, Education, First Nations Studies, and Linguistics. Through a series of academic readings, writing-intensive exercises, and opportunities for discussion and critical response, students will have a framework in which to develop their own questions about language and learn about the research and writing practices of language researchers across the disciplines. How do language researchers from different disciplines formulate research questions? What kinds of data do they incorporate in scholarly journal articles? How are the data and their research findings presented in written form? What are the formal properties of their scholarly writing?

This course focuses on corpus construction and discourse analysis (method) & provides relevant examples from research articles in the Humanities and Social Sciences as a point of departure.

Students will build their own working corpus (research articles on a particular topic) and analyze this textual material. They will have opportunities to draft and revise and present their own original research findings in both oral and written forms. Research will be carried out either collaboratively (2-3 students per research team) or individually (1 student per team), and provides students with opportunities to reflect on their own research and writing practices, as they become apprentice members of different research communities on campus.

Instructor: Gillian Carrabre

Sections: 123

Available Times: 10:00 - MWF

Artists have long struggled with their mental health. Among them, Rachmaninoff, Schumann, Van Gogh and Michael Jackson. The theme of this section of WRDS 150 is mental health and self-expression in the arts. We will examine articles from a range of disciplines, including musicology, theory, art, literature, music therapy. How do scholars consider the topic of mental health across these diverse fields of artistic discourse? How do musicians navigate the creation of art while dealing with mental illness? And how do we write about these issues as budding academics? Through the artistic work of William Shakespeare, Hector Berlioz, Avicii, Edvard Munch, Chuck Palahniuk, Linkin Park, Oscar Wilde and others, students will develop an understanding of the effects of mental health on the output of art and vice versa. Using the lens provided by our theme, students will learn to apply modern research techniques, think critically, and compose relevant academic papers in Chicago Style, the primary writing style in musical discourse. The classroom will embrace an inclusive mentality, cultivate respect among colleagues, and allow space for creativity.

Instructor:  Diane Burgess

Sections:   112, 131, 141

Available Times:  9:00, 11:00, 12:00 - MWF

With their hashtags, newsfeeds, and status updates, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have become ubiquitous in our daily lives, blurring the boundaries between personal and professional networks and impacting how we gather and disseminate information. At the same time, micro-blogging has altered the public sphere, challenging journalistic norms and influencing potential forms of political engagement. By definition, social media are both networking technologies and information conduits. Drawing examples from media studies, psychology, journalism and political science, this section of WRDS 150 explores how scholars approach the qualities of social networks, their uses and their users.

Instructor: Jennifer Cowe

Sections:   121, 132, 151, 162

Available Times:   10:00, 11:00, 1:00, 2:00 - MWF

This course will aim to explore how different academic disciplines engage with the concept of nostalgia. Nostalgia is a word, or more usually a feeling, that most people have used or felt; however, very few understand its constant presence in everyday life. We will study nostalgia from its earliest appearance in academia as a form of mental illness in the seventeenth century and follow its growing influence over, and manipulation of, contemporary ideas of national identity, consumerism, class, social media and the environment. We will attempt to understand how the politics of memory, belonging and collective remembrance reflect and inform current political discourse.

Instructor: Rohan Karpe

Sections:  231

Available Times:   2:00 - T/R

In this WRDS 150 section we explore behaviours, norms, and behavioural change.

We have voluntarily adopted some of these behaviours, norms, and changes; some have been enforced, and still others have been influenced by those around us. These behaviours, norms, and changes appear at personal as well as at societal levels. How do various disciplinary researchers study behaviours, norms, and behavioural change. What research writing practices do they engage in to communicate their findings about behaviours, norms, and behavioural change? Using peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles, writing exercises, discussions, and critical feedback on writing assignments, you will be able to construct your own text-based research proposal and research paper on a behaviour, norm that you’re keen to study. Your paper will assist keen readers to change their understanding of your chosen topic.

Instructor: David Newman

Sections:  222

Available Times:   11:00 T/R

( For a video introduction of David’s course topic click on the link underneath his profile picture at https://jwam.ubc.ca/people/?type=faculty&research-teaching-area=wrds-writing-studies-2.)

In a world where innovation has become highly sought after, creativity is the often-hidden engine necessary for innovation to take place. Creativity is recognised as one of the key skills required for employment in the 21^stcentury, and one area where humans have an advantage over AI. Creativity and creative problem-solving capacity is increasingly a necessary attribute in the professional/work world. But what is creativity, and how is it understood?

We are all creative, and creativity goes far beyond artistic activities. Creativity crosses discipline boundaries and can be viewed and understood through multiple lenses (including business, engineering, and neuroscience). Using scholarship on Creativity and Creative Problem Solving as a vehicle, this course will introduce you to different genres and forms of academic writing. You will learn to conduct a literature review, write summaries, develop a research proposal, and then write (and rewrite) collaboratively either an extended literature review (summer session) or a research paper (winter session) drawing on some aspect of creativity, creative problem solving, or innovation. This course uses a hybrid format with a heavy use of team-based learning. A portion of the teaching content will be via asynchronous video material.

Instructor: Jonathan Otto

Sections:  021, 031, 042, 052

Available Times:   9:30, 11:00, 1:00, 2:30 - MW

Designed to introduce you to the world of scholarly research and writing, this section of WRDS 150 will do so with a focus on the concept of “sustainability.”  As a concept, “sustainability” gained international popularity following discussions about “sustainable development” at the 1992 United Nations (UN) Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. Twenty-three years later, the UN created the “Sustainable Development Goals,” consisting of a broad set of principles aimed at guiding the sustainability efforts of member countries.  The popularization of the concept has inspired significant “sustainability”-related work by inter-governmental organizations, governments, and non-governmental actors, including researchers, businesses and universities.  In order to understand the influence “sustainability” as a concept, it is important to review its origins, explore the diverse ways individuals, governments and other actors use it, and to assess how it inspires these actors’ relationships with the natural environment.

In this course, we will do so by reading sustainability research from scholars in multiple academic disciplines within the Faculty of Arts and in fields within other faculties like engineering and the natural sciences.  Given their diverse training, scholars within these disciplines understand “sustainability” to mean different things, analyze it in different ways, and write about it in genres that are unique to their disciplinary communities.  We will examine how knowledge about “sustainability” is produced and communicated in each of these disciplinary contexts and highlight commonalities and differences across them.  We will also draw on scholarly research to consider alternative ways of conceptualizing human-environment relations that extend beyond the concept of “sustainability.”  In addition to reading scholarly research, you will have the opportunity to conduct your own research on “sustainability” and to communicate your findings in scholarly genres.  In doing so, you will be able cultivate a critical understanding of the concept of “sustainability” and to develop your own identity as a novice researcher and member of the university.

Instructor: Nazih El-Bezre

Sections:  201, 211, 221

Available Times:   8:00, 9:30, 11:00 - T/R

This section of WRDS 150 focuses on the relationship among globalization, identity formation, and the literacy practices needed in the 21st century. In today’s technologically-interconnected world, people, ideologies, food habits, fashion, and movies flow easily through borders with a speed unforeseen in the recorded human history. Due to the shrinkage of our world—which has been called a global village—we are faced with questions concerning the knowledges or literacies required to succeed in a highly competitive world, and the impact of these knowledges on our own identities. The focus on the 21st century literacies operates in conjunction with crucial life literacies, such as health literacy, ecoliteracy, second/additional language literacies, religious literacy, financial literacies, and even food literacy studies. As a result of these multiliteracies, individuals in the 21st century are now required to possess and use a variety of literacy competencies that span across various academic disciplines. Individuals’ literacies are thus multiple, dynamic, adaptable, and multidimensional. Due to the significance of these literacies on identity formation, researchers, including novice university students, explore literacies to improve knowledge transmission at every stage of individuals’ lives.

Instructor: Louis Maraj

Sections:  232

Available Times:   2:00 - T/R

How does who we are shape the knowledge we produce and engage in the world? In what ways do institutions, cultures, and media give us ideas about how we should and shouldn’t think of ourselves and those around us? And what roles do language and communication play in developing our perceptions of who can make scholarly knowledge? In this course, participants will survey a variety of artifacts that engage ideas about identity and identity formation drawn from a number of strains of thought—including rhetorical studies, gender and sexuality studies, sociology, poetics, and cultural studies. We will think deeply about the politics of representation in how these artifacts communicate for scholarly audiences, while developing projects that actively acknowledge, address, and apply our own identity positions in research.

Instructor: Gillian Carrabre

Sections:  011

Available Times:   8:00  - MW

Artists have long struggled with their mental health. Among them, Rachmaninoff, Schumann, Van Gogh and Michael Jackson. The theme of this section of WRDS 150 is mental health and self-expression in the arts. We will examine articles from a range of disciplines, including musicology, theory, art, literature, music therapy. How do scholars consider the topic of mental health across these diverse fields of artistic discourse? How do musicians navigate the creation of art while dealing with mental illness? And how do we write about these issues as budding academics? Through the artistic work of William Shakespeare, Hector Berlioz, Avicii, Edvard Munch, Chuck Palahniuk, Linkin Park, Oscar Wilde and others, students will develop an understanding of the effects of mental health on the output of art and vice versa. Using the lens provided by our theme, students will learn to apply modern research techniques, think critically, and compose relevant academic papers in Chicago Style, the primary writing style in musical discourse. The classroom will embrace an inclusive mentality, cultivate respect among colleagues, and allow space for creativity.

Instructor: Adrian Lou

Sections:  001, 002

Available Times:  11:00, 12:00 - M/T/R

Traditionally, metaphor has been understood as a stylistic device that poetically decorates language. Metaphorical expressions (e.g. my love is a rose) are thus thought to be statements that do not reside in the realm of everyday speech. However, contemporary research in cognitive linguistics has shown that many conventional expressions are inescapably metaphorical. Consider, for instance, how we rely on metaphors to talk about abstract concepts, such as love (e.g. you’re breaking my heart), illness (e.g. the patients are battling cancer), and time (e.g. we’re running out of time). In this course, we will read academic articles that evaluate the use of metaphors in biology, healthcare, psychology, Indigenous studies and politics in order to have a better understanding of how metaphors shape the way we think about the world around us. Ultimately, students in WRDS 150 will learn how to read academic papers in a critical way, identify the rhetorical strategies used in academic writing, and write an original research paper that draws upon ideas and concepts from the course.

Instructor: Meredith Beales

Sections:  061, 071, 241, 251

Available Times:   3:00, 4:30 - MW, 3:30, 5:00 - T/R

In The Lion King, on the BBC, on stages and classrooms around the world—the work of William Shakespeare is often encountered as a classroom text, theatre, or film.  But Shakespeare is now also used as inspiration for academic research ranging from history and film studies to archeology, mathematics, and cognitive science.  In this class, we will examine how this one sixteenth-century English playwright has galvanized research in a variety of disciplines beyond the traditional starting point of English literature.  We will ask why this particular writer has such a large impact on academic study, and whether, in research on, for example, supernovae or twenty-first century Afghan politics, Shakespeare has much to do with the research at all.  Does simply adding the name Shakespeare make it more likely to be taken seriously?  Does it matter that the motivation for an archeological dig comes from trying to prove Shakespeare wrong?  What, if anything, does Shakespeare have to do with the research done in his name?

No prior knowledge of Shakespeare is expected, nor will we be reading his literature (the plays or poems themselves) in WRDS 150.

Instructor: Kimberly Richards

Sections:  003

Available Times:   9:00 - M/T/R

From public apologies issued by politicians for historical violences to theatrical strategies activists deploy to draw attention to injustice, performance is an important mode and medium of political communication. In this course, we will study some of the ways that political actors use performative strategies on stage and in everyday life with real consequences in the world. We will examine how diverse actors use scripts, choreographies, rehearsal practices, acting strategies, stage design, and recording technologies to persuade audiences of their righteousness, legitimacy and authority, and gain social, cultural, political and/or economic power in the process of doing so. We will observe how scholars working in social movement studies, critical Indigenous studies, discourse studies, celebrity studies, gender and women’s studies, and critical media studies describe, analyze, interpret and critique how power is gained, invoked and maintained through performance analysis. Doing so will help us to become more attentive and engaged citizens.