Summer UW Course Descriptions

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UW1020 Courses Upper-Level UW Courses	UW1020 Courses Upper-Level UW Courses

Registration Transaction Forms (RTFs)

Please note that all Summer UW1020 sections are capped at 15 students and that this cap cannot be exceeded for any reason. UW instructors cannot sign RTF forms to add students to a section. The only way to add a section of UW1020 is through the GWeb system. If a section is full, you should either check GWeb frequently for open seats, select a different section, or plan to take UW the following semester.

Summer 2025

Session I

UW 1020 Courses:

Carter, Katharine - I Did my Own Research: Writing Solutions to Systemic Inequity

From federal and state laws to school rules and codes of conduct, systems have historically placed barriers to people’s freedoms and access to opportunities.

Additionally, these institutionalized drivers of inequity are often embedded in society, where they are far more subtle but equally as unjust.

Scholars have used examined theories, including critical theory, to explain these occurrences and write solutions to them.

In this course students will be introduced to sociology and social justice research through multiple theories by examining social problems within society that are rooted in inequality and maintained through social systems.

Students will develop research questions to explore a social problem and will review existing research on the social problems they’ve chosen to address. Research sources will include a combination of scholarly and non-scholarly sources, such as journal articles, social media posts, case studies, narratives, and government agency reports.

Students will also review publications from organizations that provide services to those experiencing students’ chosen social problem.

Students will then be prepared to use their analysis to create solutions for a social problem in society through social justice and service. Students will write research proposals, literature reviews, and a final research paper.

Hijazi, Nabila - Gender, Religion, and Muslim Women

This course examines the lives, identities, and representation of Muslim women through a critical lens, challenging common misconceptions and stereotypes often perpetuated in Western media. Students will engage in writing assignments while exploring themes like gender roles, the hijab, activism, and educational pursuits among Muslim women. Through a combination of readings, discussions, documentaries, and guest speakers, the course illuminates the diversity of experiences among Muslim women, considering factors like cultural context, personal choice, and the ways in which these women navigate their identities in various settings. Students will gain a nuanced understanding of Muslim women’s roles in activism, their challenges and achievements in education, and how they contribute to social change. Through a multidisciplinary lens, students will engage with historical and contemporary discussions surrounding Muslim women’s agency, activism, and roles within Muslim societies and global contexts. Readings and discussions will encourage students to question their assumptions, confront biases, and consider diverse perspectives. Ultimately, this course fosters critical thinking in reading and writing, inviting students to thoughtfully engage with the complex narratives and diverse experiences of Muslim women worldwide.

Presser, Pamela - Cultures, Consciousness and Community Engagement

NOTE: This course will be taught via remote instruction.

What is good writing?

Are some genres more equal than others?

What do our ideas about writing enable or restrict?

Can writing help improve your state of mind, or impact on the world?

Questions like these, which we will discuss in this class, are part of a long standing conversation about the nature of education. In this course, you will be encouraged to explore your own research interests and will also have the opportunity to work with the Smithsonian Institution or a community non-profit. { This work will be virtual and could be asynchronous.}

Major assignments will include developing an annotated critical bibliography and an accompanying research paper, and students will also engage in an intensive peer review process.

Upper-Level UW Courses:

Gamber, Cayo - Introduction to Women/Gender/Sexuality Studies (UW2020)

Note: This course will satisfy a WID requirement. This is a distance learning course. This class is cross-listed with WGSS 2120W.

Designed to give students with diverse backgrounds and disciplines a basic understanding of the debates and perspectives discussed in the field of WGSS as well as the larger theoretical scope of feminism, the course asks: What is feminism? What role do gender, sexuality, and intersectionality play in terms of understanding the varieties of human experience? How are issues of femininity, masculinity, and sexuality constructed and defined? In order to answer those questions, we will interrogate our responses/relationships to various texts – including academic arguments, personal narratives, advertisements, films, YouTube videos, celebrities, consumer goods – as they are inflected by our evolving understanding of feminism and social justice.

Hijazi, Nabila - Gender, Religion, and Muslim Women (UW2020)

Note: This course will satisfy a WID requirement.

Pollack, Rachel - Discovering the Romans: Then & Now (UW2020)

Note: This course will satisfy a WID requirement.

This course examines our enduring relationship with the ancient Roman world from the early Renaissance to present day. The renewed interest in antiquity in the sixteenth century precipitated by Michelangelo and his contemporaries, set the stage for modern archaeology and our appreciation for Greco-Roman sculpture in western art. The Roman Forum, The Colosseum, The Pantheon, Nero’s Golden Palace, The Baths of Caracalla, Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli, are among the most iconic monuments that have stood the test of time and resonate in western architecture to this day. Even the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the mid-eighteenth century, further fanned the flames of our fascination for the Roman world. Archaeological discoveries in the present day are continually opening our minds to new aspects of the Roman Empire, from the northern reaches of England to North Africa and Syria.

How do we see ourselves in relation to the ancient Romans? In what way have modern-day archaeological finds brought us closer to understanding this ancient civilization? How have artists and architects across time appropriated the legacy of Rome into their works? In other words, what have the Romans done for us?

Troutman, Phillip – Race, GW, and DC History (UW2020)

Note: This course will satisfy a WID requirement.

In this course, you will craft public history interpretation of major events in GW’s history that intersect the racial history of the District of Columbia. In the 1830s, African American abolitionists Leonard and Octavia Grimes operated a school and Underground Railroad station on the northeast corner of 22nd and H Streets NW (now a small park across from Gelman Library), yet Leonard Grimes was ordained a Baptist minister by the president of Columbian College, who was an enslaver. In 1847, pro-slavery students rioted upon discovering that their peer Henry Arnold had helped Abram, an enslaved worker at the college, try to gain his freedom in DC courts. A century later, in 1946, student WWII veterans led the fight to drop the exclusion of African Americans from GW, while president Cloyd Heck Marvin publicly defended segregation until 1954. GW’s 1959 campus plan called for its expansion across Foggy Bottom, some of which was majority African American, changing the face of the neighborhood through the 1960s and 1970s. You’ll work individually and in teams on one of these topics (or another of your choosing) and choose an options for public history interpretation, which might include a temporary museum-style exhibit in the form of large posterboards installed in Gelman or elsewhere, or an exhibit of documents and artifacts in Gelman’s Memorabilia Room. In this WID course, you will engage in the writing of history for the public and take your work through a process of drafting, revision, and peer review.

Session II

UW 1020 Courses:

Fletcher, Wade - An Empirical Approach: Writing in the Social Sciences

Note: Course restricted to students in Jump Start Program.

Media portrayals of social science research, such as a Time Magazine report on “how laughter can boost one’s attractiveness,” often result in sensational claims made in limited contexts, which some scholars say devalues the important work being done in fields such as sociology, psychology, and education. How is social science research relevant to our daily lives? What ethical implications accompany such research? How do disciplinary conventions function in social science disciplines, and how do these differ from those with which we are more accustomed?

In this course, we will seek to better understand how knowledge is constructed in the social sciences, explore how this knowledge is communicated rhetorically, and consider how tenets of social science research and writing can inform our own work in other areas and disciplines. Assignments will include three papers—an article critique, an Op-Ed, and an argumentative research paper on a current issue in a social science discipline—as well as short projects, an annotated bibliography, and contributions to an online class discussion forum.

McCaughey, Jessica - Telling True Stories: Truth and Memory in Creative Nonfiction

Note: Course restricted to students in Jump Start Program.
Is the truth precisely what occurred, or is it in how we recall an event, or a conversation, or an image years later? Should we trust our own memories in storytelling? What about those of other people? How should gaps and haziness in memory be addressed in writing? Does a text’s “truth” affect its power? Is emotional truth equal in value to fact? Do the answers to these questions shift with audience or the purpose of a piece of writing?

In addition to countless literary scandals surrounding memoirs and creative nonfiction over the past few decades, the exploration of what constitutes “the truth” in writing is an essential and fascinating element of not only literary study, but also in examining our world and its stories. In this class we will read a variety of nonfiction texts—from literary journalism and essays to memoirs and book-length creative nonfiction—and we’ll write intensely both about the ideas and arguments of these writers and about our own experiences and research. We will also focus significant time and energy on examining the rhetorical context of texts and on developing a comprehensive, iterative writing and research process.

Richter, Jacob - Writing for Social Media

When you scroll social media, you are inundated with writing, rhetoric, images, sounds, GIFs, hashtags, videos, captions, and other forms of communication. Platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Twitter/X, and TikTok are full of writing and media that shape our world in increasingly vital but often poorly understood forms. Writing is a technology that enables us to share ideas, express ourselves, connect with others, and build momentum for the causes that we care about, but it also is rapidly evolving in a digital age in ways that are not always positive. In this endeavor, writing’s capacity to generate consequences in the world is helped along by seemingly free digital platforms, by algorithms that reward emotion and sensationalism, and by a digital ecosystem that is geared toward profit far more than it is toward transparency, the emotional health of its users, or even democracy.

In this course, we’ll approach both academic writing and writing on social media as an opportunity for intervention in a contemporary world where writing and communication online saturate our lives more than they ever have before. In individual class sessions, we’ll discuss academic writing, but will also discuss how writing and rhetoric on social media impact varied topics like democratic elections, corporate responsibility, the emotional health of teenagers, and even the types of writing and communication that emerging professionals (and thus college students) benefit from expertise in. We’ll learn together through in-class activities that involve creating pretend Starbucks and Dunkin Instagram posts to enact visual rhetoric, will write pretend Kickstarter pages to practice tailoring a message for an audience in a particular rhetorical situation, and will remix major research projects into a social media campaign using tools like Zeoob and Hootsuite. We’ll also conduct extensive academic research to probe important questions about topics like ubiquitous data collection online, social media’s impact on the mental health of teens, how political campaigns are leveraging social media influencers to win elections, and how platforms are increasingly enabling misinformation, science denial, authoritarianism, social movements, and both political polarization and revolution. The extensive research students will conduct in this course will culminate in two projects, the “Social Media Rhetorical Analysis” and the “Public Recommendation Report” projects, that generate original knowledge about social media’s role in our contemporary information ecosystem and offer recommendations for future action society should take to address these opportunities.

Upper-Level UW Courses:

Carter, Katherine - Solving Social Problems Through Research and Social Justice (UW2020)

Note: This course will satisfy a WID requirement.

This course is designed to introduce students to sociology and social justice by examining social problems within society that are rooted in inequality and maintained through social systems. Students will develop research questions to explore a social problem and will review existing research on the social problems they’ve chosen to address. Research sources will include a combination of scholarly and non-scholarly sources, such as journal articles, social media posts, case studies, narratives, and government agency reports. Students will also review publications from organizations that provide services to those experiencing students’ chosen social problem. Students will then be prepared to use their analysis to create solutions for a social problem in society through social justice and service. Students will write research proposals, literature reviews, and a final research paper.

Gamber, Cayo - Introduction to Women/Gender/Sexuality Studies (UW2020)

Note: This course will satisfy a WID requirement.

McCaughey, Jessica - Travel Writing (UW2020)

Note: This course will satisfy a WID requirement.

This course offers students the chance to immerse themselves into travel writing in its many forms. As a community of writers, we’ll read widely in an effort to understand the history and recent developments in travel writing; its forms, language, and influence, as well as the crucial ethical questions embedded in this type of writing.

Students will read and write in various forms under the larger umbrella of “travel writing,” including, for instance, personal travel narratives, “36 Hours In–” articles, and researched travel essays. Throughout these units, we’ll also address larger questions related to the class topic, such as: How have writers challenged forms of oppression, such as racism, homophobia, sexism, and ableism through travel narratives? Are TikToks (#vanlife #solotraveler #wanderlust etc.) travel writing? And what are the responsibilities of travel writers when it comes to climate change?

Although certainly no extensive travel is required, students will be asked to take themselves on short, self-guided field trips to complete some assignments.

Why travel writing is a good skill to learn even if you’re not going to be a travel writer: A big emphasis of this course will be placed on the act of examining specific forms of travel writing, evaluating and analyzing them, and then learning how to write effectively within that new genre. This is a skill that all students and professionals can use in any new writing scenario. Additionally, learning how to better develop clear, descriptive, persuasive prose that engages a particular audience will help writers across disciplines to become more effective communicators. Finally, this course helps students to develop a stronger writing process (with an emphasis on giving, receiving, and implementing feedback) and to assess their own work rhetorically and stylistically.

All students who have completed UW1020 are welcome in this course, whether they have a creative writing background or not.

Smith, Caroline - Women Artists in DC (UW2020)

Note: This course will satisfy a WID requirement.

In this course, we will view, read, research, and write about the work of women artists whose creations can be found in the many museums located in Washington, D.C. We will consider the themes and techniques that various women artists employ. Each week, we will be working with a different area museum, visiting their collections and hearing from museum professionals about the type of writing they do in their everyday lives. Some of these museums may include The National Portrait Gallery, The Phillips Collection, and The Kreeger Museum. As writers, we will complete a variety of writing assignments similar to those done by artists and museum professionals. These assignments will include exhibition label writing, visual analysis, and exhibition review. Together, we will explore the vibrant arts community in Washington, DC and celebrate women artists whose work continues to be marginalized.

Troutman, Phillip - Culture of Sustainability in the Netherlands, 15th – 21st C.(UW2020)

Note: This course will satisfy a WID requirement.

This is a course in the arts of looking, coupled with an attention to sustainability. It treats the entire nation of the Netherlands as a case study (with special attention to Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Rotterdam), asking: How do Dutch people in the conceptualize, reorganize, and even create space? How do they use it, interact with it, rework it to meet new needs? How do we engage it as visitors and outsiders? In False Flat: Why Dutch Design is So Good, architectural critic Aaron Betsky argues that since virtually every square centimeter of the Netherlands has been dredged from the ocean or otherwise engineered, space itself is precious, and therefore everything is designed to work in that space. Yet the ways Dutch people have imagined and used visual and physical space has changed radically over time, in uneven ways. Twenty-first century bicycle infrastructure, for example, re-configured the entire transportation landscape around the most conservative vehicle on earth—the “Dutch bike,” whose design remains frozen in its 1930s state. We will use the United Nations’ “17 Goals” as entry points into key questions: How do contemporary architects and designers relate their work to the city’s centuries-old canal layout, respond to ideas from the Amsterdam School or De Stijl, and the modern international city? How do historical museums imagine the difficult past and narrate it for present-day audiences? How do descendants of immigrants from former Dutch colonies in Indonesia and the Caribbean—along with immigrants from North Africa and elsewhere—use the city’s arts and public infrastructure to articulate new ideas about themselves, each other, and what it might mean to be “Dutch” in this post-colonial, international context? You’ll engage methods of visual analysis from art, design, architecture, museum studies, cultural studies, and anthropology. You will read, research, blog with peers, and write two essays revising and extending your writing from these posts.