ENGL 299 D: Intermediate Interdisciplinary Writing - Natural Sciences

Meets: M/W 11:30-12:50 (unless you choose to work with a small group on your weekly classwork via Zoom, class will be asynchronous, meaning that we will not be meeting over Zoom except for individual writing conferences and my weekly office hours)

Instructor: Daniel E. Roberts

Email: derob@uw.edu

Virtual Office Hours: M/W 2:00-3:00 PM (US Pacific Time)
or by appointment- use this Zoom meeting ID: 206 739 8399

Image: "The Two-Headed Biographer and the Museum of Notions" by Eva Kotakova, Bonhice Psychiatric Hospital

Welcome to the Writing link for Biopsychology! English 299 D is an intensive, intermediate writing course designed for participants in PSYCH 202. In our class, we will learn and practice skills for analyzing texts and data, organizing evidence, and presenting effective arguments in the manner expected of University of Washington students. Our course is loosely linked with PSYCH 202, meaning that we will explore some of the concepts you will study in that class in more depth through writing, class discussion, and interdisciplinary conversations. But this is also a course in its own right, and as such it will take its own detours.  Most of the thinkers we will be engaging with this quarter can be broadly categorized as cultural studies scholars and activists, and this course asks us to weigh the potential benefits of cultural studies to the disciplines of psychology and psychiatry, and vice versa. Our readings and discussions will focus on cultural studies (especially critical disability studies) perspectives that orbit around the histories and politics of diagnosis and cure; the legacy of the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric care; experiences of neurodivergence, mental disability, mental illness, and/or madness and the political movements built around them; eugenics movements and reproductive futurity; and the interlocking systems of medicalization and criminalization.

This quarter you will produce two drafts of three 4-6 page essays, with one round of peer review for each essay built into the drafting process. Not only will you benefit from the additional sets of scholarly eyes under which your work will pass, but you’ll have the chance to develop critical capacities through thinking about your classmates’ writing – a practice that likely will significantly improve your talents in evaluating and revising your own essays. As much as possible, emphasis in this class will be placed on learning through thinking and writing in interdisciplinary contexts. Many activities in this writing link will reflect the importance of writing as a means of learning.  Students will read and write to think through interpretive and critical issues and problems. Students will do much of this writing as homework assignments that include weekly blog posts, off-the-cuff responses to new materials, and draft sequences of major essays.

REQUIRED TEXTS

All assigned course texts will either be posted to our Course Canvas page (Files>Course Texts folder), hosted as an eBook through UW Libraries, or available for purchase from Amazon or your favorite local bookstore online. The following texts must be purchased independently:

• Liat Ben-Moshe, Decarcerating Disability
• Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Tonguebreaker
• Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias

GRADING BREAKDOWN

(See the grade contract posted to the Week 1 module.)

MAJOR ESSAYS

This quarter you are required to write and revise 3 major essays. You will turn in two drafts of each essay--a first draft, and a final draft. You will give and receive peer feedback on each of these first drafts. 

CLASSWORK

Since Autumn quarter is entirely virtual, much of the small group work we would normally do in class will either be completed independently or in small groups. All "classwork" for the week is due on Thursdays by 11:59pm.

Q/A BLOG ASSIGNMENT--8 posts and 8 Replies

Q/A Posts: Due on Thursday by 11:59pm (250-350 words each)

Q/A Post Responses: Due on Sundays by 11:59pm (150-200 words each)

Post your Q/A as a "comment" on my discussion post on our Canvas Discussion board.

Q/A Posts (250-350 words): Question/Answer blog posts are meant to be a virtual extension of our learning community. Throughout the quarter you are required to submit 8 blog posts to Canvas. You may select which weeks/days to contribute, but you must post by 11:59pm Thursday of that week.  Each blog post must engage at least one of the readings assigned for the week. You can only submit one Q/A post per week, but you can choose which 8 weeks you want to respond to.

Your blog posts should open with a critical question you have about the assigned reading for the day. Some possible models of questions include:

What is the relationship between A and B (according to the reading and to me)?

How does this text invite us to think about X and why is this significant?

How can we use these texts to help us understand X [current event]?

What are the stakes of Z? What are some practical takeaways from this week's readings?

These are only a few examples--you can shape your questions however you want. In responding to your question (or seeking to "answer" it) you should turn to, and incorporate, evidence from the reading from that week while responding to them with your own perspective. You do not need to arrive at a thesis by the end of your post--the purpose of these blog posts is to provide you low-stakes opportunities to practice textual analysis, and test your ideas out on your peers and I. You may revise and extend the questions you pursue in these blog posts in your formal essays and projects, but you do not have to.

Q/A Responses (150-200 words): In addition to submitting a total of 8 Q/A posts to Canvas, you are required to respond to at least one of your classmates' Q/A posts weekly, for a total of 8 responses over the course of the quarter.  Like your Q/A posts, you can choose which 8 weeks you want to engage one of your classmates' posts. Your responses should speak to the question posed by your peer and the way they sought to "answer" this question. Be sure to go beyond saying you "agree" or "disagree" with the assertions made by your peer--give substantial reasons for why you agree or disagree. You can also build on your classmate's post by furthering the conversation they take up in their Q/A post.

COURSE CALENDAR

Note: Readings and Assignments are DUE the date they are posted. In other words, complete the reading or assignment before class that day. All readings aside from the four texts which must be purchased independently will be posted to Canvas or linked to as an ebook through UW libraries.

Key:

[CV] = posted to Canvas

Due dates and times are in PDT, Pacific time

Week 1

Monday 3/29

•  Welcome! Please review the materials posted in the Week 1 module.
  
  

Wednesday 3/31

• Read Butler’s “The Evening, the Morning, and the Night” before “class” today.
• Get to Know You/Accessibility Survey due by 11:59pm
  
  

Thursday 4/1

• Week 1 Classwork Due by 11:59pm 
• Week 1 Q/A post due by 11:59pm (Remember that you only have to submit 8 total Q/A posts, so while you are welcome to submit one for today, you do not have to).
  
  

 Sunday 4/4

• Week 1 Q/A reply due by 11:59pm

Week 2

Monday 4/5

• Roberts, “Preface” (pg ix-xii) and "Chapter 1: The Invention of Race" (pg 3-25) from Fatal Invention 
• Suggested: Watch PBS documentary The Gene Part 1: Dawn of the Modern Age of Genetics
• Grade Contract Due by 11:59pm

Wednesday 4/7

• Roberts, "Pharmacoethnicity" (149-167) and "Conclusion: The Crossroads" (309-312) from Fatal Invention
• Suggested: Watch or Listen: "COVID-19 Sacrifice Zones," Democracy Now, April 9, 2020
• Suggested: "Color-Coded Pills" (168-201) from Fatal Invention
  
  

Thursday 4/8

• Week 2 Classwork Due by 11:59pm
• Week 2 Q/A post due by 11:59pm

Sunday 4/11

• Week 2 Q/A Response Due by 11:59pm

Week 3

Monday  4/12

• Samuels, “Intro: The Crisis of Identification” (pg 1-23) from Fantasies of Identification

Wednesday 4/14

• Samuels, "DNA and the Readable Self" (185-212) from Fantasies of Identification
• Suggested: Watch PBS Animated Series The Gene Explained

Thursday 4/15

• Week 3 Classwork Due by 11:59pm
• Week 3 Q/A Post Due by 11:59pm
  
  

Sunday 4/18

• Week 3 Q/A Responses Due by 11:59pm
• Essay 1 First Draft Due by 11:59pm

Week 4

Monday 4/19

• Class canceled for individual writing conferences (over Zoom)

Wednesday 4/21

• Bromberg, "The Universe of Crime" (p 70-93) from Crime and the Mind: A Psychiatric Analysis of Crime and Punishment (1965)
• Winerman, "Criminal Profiling: The Reality Behind the Myth," APA Monitor
• Suggested: Kocsis, "An Introduction to Criminal Profiling" from Criminal Psychology
• Peer  Review feedback over Essay 1 First Draft Due by 11:59pm

Thursday 4/22

• Week 4 Q/A Post Due by 11:59pm

Sunday 4/25

• Essay 1 Final Draft Due by 11:59pm
• Week 4 Q/A Response Due by 11:59pm

Week 5

Monday 4/26

• 13th (available on Netflix)
• Suggested: 13th: A Conversation with Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay (available on Netflix)
• Suggested: Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? 
• Week 4 Classwork Due by 11:59pm

Wednesday 4/28

• Ware, Rusza, and Diaz-"It Can't Be Fixed Because It's Not Broken: Racism and Disability in the Prison Industrial Complex" from Disability Incarcerated
• Critical Resistance, "What is Abolition?"
• Suggested: watch Time: The Kalief Browder Story S1:E3, "The Bing" (available on Netflix)
  
  

Thursday 4/29

• Week 5 Classwork Due by 11:59pm
• Week 5 Q/A Post Due by 11:59pm

Sunday 5/2

• Week 5 Q/A Responses Due by 11:59pm

Week 6

Monday 5/3

• Price, "Assaults on the Ivory Tower" from Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life
  
• "Concerning Behaviors" from UW Safe Campus website

Wednesday  5/5

• Ben-Moshe, "Introduction" (p. 1-31) from Decarcerating Disability (must buy independently)
• Suggested: Lewis, "A Mad Fight"

Thursday 5/6

• Week 6 Classwork Due by 11:59pm
• Week 6 Q/A post Due by 11:59pm

Sunday 5/9

• Week 6 Q/A Response Due by 11:59pm

Week 7

Monday 5/10

• Ben-Moshe, "Chapter 1: The Perfect Storm" (p. 37-68) from Decarcerating Disability
• Suggested: Ben-Moshe, "Epilogue" (269-283) and "Chapter 3: Abolition as Knowledge and Ways of Unknowing" from Decarcerating Disability
  
  

Wednesday 5/12

• Metzl,  Preface to and Chapter 13 of The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease 
• Suggested: Metzl Chapter 14 

Thursday 5/13

• Week 7 Classwork Due by 11:59pm
• Week 7 Q/A post Due by 11:59pm

Sunday 5/16

• Week 7 Q/A Responses Due by 11:59pm

Week 8

Monday 5/17

• Wang, excerpts from The Collected Schizophrenias-- "Diagnosis" (3-25) and "Toward a Pathology of the Possessed" (27-41)

Wednesday 5/19

• Wang, from The Collected Schizophrenias-"On the Ward" (95-111) and "The Slenderman, the Nothing, and Me" (113-122)
  
  

Thursday 5/20

• Week 8 Classwork Due by 11:59pm
• Week 8 Q/A Post Due by 11:59pm

Sunday 5/23

• Essay 2 First Draft Due by 11:59pm
• Week 8 Q/A Responses Due by 11:59pm

Week 9

Monday 5/24

• Ne'eman, "The Future (and the Past) of Autistic Advocacy, or Why the ASA's Magazine, The Advocate, Wouldn't Publish this Piece" 
• Selections from Thibault, "Can Autistics Redefine Autism?" (pg. 57-60 and 72-81)--sections "Intro," "The Public Formations of the Neurodiversity Movement," and "Conclusion"
• Suggested: Oberman and Ramachadran, "Broken Mirrors: A Theory of Autism," Scientific American
• Suggested: Hasselmann, "No, Autistic People Do Not Have a "Broken" Mirror Neuron System--New Evidence," Research Digest
• No classwork due this week.
  
  

Wednesday 5/26

• Class canceled for individual writing conferences
• Essay 2 First Draft Peer Review Due by 11:59pm
• No small group work sessions this week
  
  

Thursday 5/27

• No Classwork Due This Week
• Week 9 Q/A post Due by 11:59pm
  
  

Sunday 5/30

• Week 9 Q/A Response Due by 11:59pm

Week 10

Monday 5/31

• Kafer, "Debating Feminist Futures" from Feminist Queer Crip

Wednesday 6/2

• Piepzna-Samarasinha, Tonguebreaker

Thursday 6/3

• Week 10 Classwork Due by 11:59pm
• Week 10 Q/A post Due by 11:59pm
  
  

Sunday 6/6

• Essay 2 Final Draft Due by 11:59pm
• Week 10 Q/A Response Due by 11:59pm