MCWP Courses
- Course Schedule
- MCWP Summer
- MCWP 50
- MCWP 125
All students with more than 90 cumulative units (completed + enrolled) need preauthorization. Preauthorizations for Summer will be added to your VAC record when the schedule becomes available. Check your VAC contact record for your preauthorization. If it's not there, send a message through the VAC choosing "Muir Writing" as the reason for your query.
TOPICS MAY BE SUBJECT TO CHANGE
The reading and writing requirements are the same for all sections.
Textbooks can be purchased through the UC San Diego Bookstore!
by Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers
Please purchase the 9th edition of the Writer's Reference from the bookstore, as we have a version that is specific for UC San Diego's Writing Programs (Muir and Warren colleges).
The political sphere includes and regulates many things that have a direct effect on our livelihoods and communities: minimum wage, access to healthcare, immigration, infrastructure, the regulation of our bodies, whom we can marry, and so much more. This topic explores art in politics and politics in art, ranging from antiwar arts activism in the 1960s, the social politics of representing BIPOC histories and individuals, boycott and divestment, and various case studies of both artists and notorious controversies that highlight the tensions between artists/makers, artworks, audiences, local communities, and the museum as mediating institution. Assigned readings draw on art history and museum studies, but the subject matter of the course will also touch on various social histories. How do the arts intersect with and/or represent political issues, movements, themes, and identities? What roles does politics play in the arts, and vice versa? What are some of the past and recent controversies in the arts, and what kinds of art have been considered transgressive? Possible research topics include (but are not limited to) the connections between the arts and politics pertaining to climate change, social justice movements, activism, globalization, labor practices, funding structures, war, museums and/or stakeholders, and more. Students will identify a scholarly debate, or research conversation (in relation to the course topic), propose a project that will participate in that conversation, engage with and analyze sources from the research process in the form of an annotated bibliography, and construct an academic research-based argument.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
094067 |
F00 |
TTH 11:00-1:50 |
REMOTE |
Elizabeth Miller |
Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will look at the way disability intersects with issues of race, gender, sexuality, and the environment to better understand the ways disability is constructed (and reconstructed) through social practices and spaces. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
085464 |
B00 |
MW 11:00-1:50 |
REMOTE |
Jennifer Marchisotto |
Through time and across cultures, humanity has invented monsters as a way of conceptualizing, understanding, and even “exorcising” that which it fears. The difference of the Other is certainly a fear all societies have had, and continue to have. Fear of the queer, fear of the immigrant, fear of the disabled, fear of the woman—each of these (and more) have been made monstrous in the arts and in public discourse since time immemorial. Through an engagement with texts engaging with Monster Theory, we can gain unique and urgent insight into how marginalized peoples are relegated to the margins in the first place.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
085463 |
A00 |
TTH 8:00-10:50 |
REMOTE |
Jennifer Carter |
085467 |
E00 |
TTH 11:00-1:50 |
REMOTE |
Erik Homenick |
Mental health conditions have increased along with the pandemic but very little about this crisis has made its way into everyday conversation. The CDC has reported that among those experiencing more mental health problems are racial and ethnic minorities and young people. It is important to acknowledge the mental health impacts brought about by the stress, grief, and loss of the pandemic. There is also the work of finding help to deal with mental health conditions and their impacts. The pandemic has brought to light the deep need for connection and community while recent discoveries in neuroscience have brought new therapeutic possibilities. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, in this course students will propose, research and write their own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to this important course topic.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
TBD |
TBD |
TBD |
REMOTE |
Andrea Carter |
There are universal elements that stories share no matter the culture they come from. Experts see this as evidence of how embedded stories are in the human experience. Stories have the power to persuade us, reinforce social norms, entertain us, pass knowledge, even influence our biology. In the course, students will research and write about the practice of storytelling while using the LMS Canvas (available to enrolled students) and its tools, including Zoom, Video, Peer Review, Chat, Assignments, Quizzes or Worksheets, and Turnitin.com.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
085465 |
C00 |
MW 2:00-4:50 |
REMOTE |
Vince Pham |
085466 |
D00 |
MW 5:00-7:50 |
REMOTE |
Mike Morshed |
Youth-led movements are driving forces in American history, social progress, and consumer culture. Yet, their crucial contributions are frequently dismissed in mainstream outlets as fleeting or uninformed and are too often reduced to arbitrary generational divides. From student activism in the Civil Rights era to figures such as Emma Gonzaléz, Malala Yousafzai, and Greta Thunberg; art movements; music genres like punk rock and hip hop; streetwear fashion; hacktivists and social media influencers – young people continue to shape society in diverse and meaningful ways.
This course will interrogate the many influences of youth movements and what happens when subversive groups with counter-cultural messages challenge or disrupt the status quo. We will discuss the history and impact of student activism in American universities and when radical actions go mainstream such as Earth Day. We will also explore sub- and counter-cultural groups including drag queens, K-pop fans, young chonga women, and more. Research projects will address how crucial and undervalued student organizing and/or youth culture are in today’s social, political, and economic landscape.
Assigned readings draw upon interdisciplinary fields in the humanities and social sciences including communication and media studies, art history, ethnic studies, cultural criticism, sociology, and gender studies. In this course, students will select a movement or countercultural group; develop a research question; identify a scholarly debate or research conversation; propose a research project that will participate in the identified conversation; research and analyze scholarly sources in the form of an annotated bibliography and construct an original academic research-based argument.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
093169 |
A00 |
TTH 11:00-1:50 |
REMOTE |
Melinda Guillen |
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
056852 |
A00 |
MW 8:00-10:50am | RCLAS R116 |
Erik Homenick |
056853 |
B00 |
TTH 8:00-10:50am | RCLAS R123 |
Jennifer Carter |
Note: MCWP 50 and MCWP 50R are the same courses, the only difference is that MCWP 50R is 8-weeks long and only offered during summer. Both MCWP 50 and MCWP 50R will fulfill the writing requirement.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
057411 |
D00 |
TTH 11:00-1:00pm | RCLAS R130 |
Michael Morshed |
057412 |
E00 |
TTH 9:00-11:00am | RCLAS R124 |
Melinda Guillen |
Everyone says we need to stop crime, but crime seems to happen whether we want it to or not. Some even make a living from it. How we treat those who have broken rules has changed over time as our morals and definitions of crimes have evolved. In this course, we will consider how modern society identifies and reacts to criminals and how punishment is determined by examining a variety of scholarly arguments that cross crime with subjects such as the US Justice System, terrorism, revenge, class, gender, and pop culture.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
057410 |
C00 |
TTH 12:00-2:00pm | RCLAS R129 |
Ayden Grout |
Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
057408 |
A00 |
MW 3:00-5:00pm | RCLAS R116 |
Haydee Smith |
With movements such as #OscarsSoWhite, Popular Culture institutions like Hollywood are increasingly critiqued for their nefarious lack of diversity, inclusion, and equity. This course questions the historical legacies, and contemporary violences, of ideological and economic practices that have often marginalized and exploited people of color, LGBTQIA+ communities, and people with disabilities. Focusing on media that blend narratives with visuals--film, television, commercials, public speeches, concerts, and music videos--students in this course will interrogate how Popular Culture has been, or can be, leveraged in the building or dismantling of systemic oppressions. Our class will examine the arguments and performances of scholars and public figures in our investigation of how Popular Culture renews, revises, and resists institutional and individual investments in white, wealthy, patriarchal, heteronormative, able-bodied privileges. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, we will work to understand the arguments’ structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to this course topic.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
057409 |
B00 |
MW 8:00-10:00am | RCLAS R105 |
Michael Berman |
According to the CDC, Black individuals are approximately five times more likely to be hospitalized by—and twice as likely to die—from COVID-19 than their white counterparts. While these statistics are the most pressing to our current moment, similar ratios exist throughout the healthcare system, showing Black Americans to be dying from treatable illnesses at disproportionate rates. Access to healthcare in America is an economic privilege. As a result, BIPOC are far less likely to receive quality care. Moreover, healthcare professionals consistently dismiss or discredit complaints by marginalized communities, a habit intricately tied to the anti-Black, misogynist, and xenophobic roots of the American Medical Industrial Complex (MIC). In this course, we will examine how race, gender, and sexuality affect access to care in the MIC. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider both the historical foundation for and contemporary perpetuation of these disparities. Students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—with the objective of making and defending an original focused argument about Anti-Blackness in the MIC in a research paper.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
025730 |
B00 |
W 1:00-4:45pm | REMOTE |
Michael Morshed |
Climate change is a problem that will not solve itself. Human habits have sped up the dangerous disruptions, but humans also have the wherewithal to identify key problems and innovate solutions. The course’s text and student projects will be focused on building understanding of the complex task ahead of us and will approach the issue through a range of lenses. The course uses the LMS Canvas (available to enrolled students) and its tools, including Zoom, Video, Peer Review, Chat, Assignments, Quizzes or Worksheets, and Turnitin.com.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
019656 |
A00 |
TTH 11:00-1:50pm | REMOTE |
Kelly Silva |
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
019663 |
A00 |
MW 11:00-1:50pm |
REMOTE |
Nur Duru |
How do sensationalized tales of pop stars, superheroes, princesses, and villains shape our understandings of majority and minority communities? Just as Ariana Grande “breaks free” from “7 rings” of systemic oppression—sex, gender, race, class, sexuality, nationality, dis/ability—students in this class will unpack the overlapping layers of popular culture, ideology, representation, oppression, and privilege. In this course students will analyze arguments about how stories function to replicate, resist, and rewrite the dominant narratives that shape our educational, legal, medical, and social institutions while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
019664 |
B00 |
MW 8:00-10:50am | REMOTE |
Laurie Nies |
025729 |
F00 |
TR 2:00-4:50pm | REMOTE |
Ayden LeRoux |
Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
019666 |
C00 |
MW 2:00-4:50pm |
REMOTE |
Melinda Guillen |
Everyone says we need to stop crime, but crime seems to happen whether we want it to or not. Some even make a living from it. How we treat those who have broken rules has changed over time as our morals and definitions of crimes have evolved. In this course, we will consider how modern society identifies and reacts to criminals and how punishment is determined by examining a variety of scholarly arguments that cross crime with subjects such as the US Justice System, terrorism, revenge, class, gender, and pop culture.
SECTION ID |
SECTION |
DAY/TIME |
ROOM |
INSTRUCTOR |
019667 |
D00 |
TTH 8:00-10:50am |
REMOTE |
Sophie Staschus |
The interdisciplinary field of bioethics grapples with conflicts that arise in medical practice, such as patients’ refusal of life-saving treatment or how to allocate scarce resources such as organs. It also considers dilemmas that emerge in response to new biotechnologies, such as stem-cell research, human genetic engineering, and prenatal diagnostics. In this course, we will explore some of the ethical and legal questions that arise in healthcare, medical research, and the use of biotechnology and bioengineering. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.