Instructor: Rubinsky | TR 9:30AM-10:50AM
No matter what your major is or what your areas of interest are, chances are you have been taught how to undertake research and how to write about your findings. But have you ever scrutinized the research and writing processes you were taught? Which kinds of academic writing and language, for example, are considered “good” and why? Which perspectives, voices and ways of knowing risk being erased when we privilege certain kinds of academic writing over others? What about the research process – in what ways might it be upholding or reproducing systems of oppression? In this course, students will grapple with these questions as they explore power and privilege in writing and research across the disciplinary discourse communities they belong to. Through critical engagement with anti-racist and decolonial pedagogical methodologies, students will examine the social conventions of the academic genres they use in their respective majors and then challenge those norms by engaging in research processes and story-based multimodal projects that allow for more inclusive and imaginative ways of communicating knowledge.