The Craft of Writing

In accordance with the University of California’s Reading and Composition (R&C) 1A requirement, this course offers rigorous training in analytical reading, thinking, and writing. It will introduce research methodologies, preparing students for successful academic careers across disciplines while presenting approaches and discourses from the field of rhetoric. The focus on discourses of religion emphasizes analytical abstract thinking, while putting theoretical texts from various disciplines into conversation with current events, literature, and film. Eight units guide students through some important debates in the field, including on universality, hermeneutics, epistemology, and modernism, engaging topics including power, agency, violence, and imperialism. The syllabus includes works from Al-Ghazâlî, Talal Asad, Averroës, Daniel Boyarin, Octavia Butler, Italo Calvino, Aimé Césaire, Severin Fowles, Immanuel Kant, Ursula Kroeber Le Guin, Saba Mahmood, Friedrich Nietzsche, Benson Saler, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.