Contagion
WRI 125
Fall 2014
Professor: Khristina Gonzalez
Class Time: Tues/Thurs 1:30-2:50
Classroom: Hargadon G002
Office: Lauritzen D008
Office hours: by appt
Email: kfg2@princeton.edu
What do vampires, the swine flu, and the latest Youtube phenomenon have in common? They
are all viral, easily spreading from body to body, place to place. It is no wonder that many horror
movies (think zombies) involve the threat of contagion—the very concept threatens borders,
making us question if our nations, our bodies, and even our minds are uniquely our own. But is
contagion always a bad thing? Consider, for instance, how the spread of national pride unites a
country during the Olympics. In this seminar, we examine how literature, film, and other texts
use contagion to show the threat—or promise—of violated borders. We begin by analyzing
visual images of bodily disease and injury, considering how these representations spread feelings
of sympathy, disgust, or vulnerability to observers. We then read two short stories, Sheridan
Lefanu’s vampire tale, Carmilla, and a Sherlock Holmes mystery, to see how contagion can be a
metaphor for international contact. To address the current fascination with contagion narratives,
students select a work of popular culture to see how it engages with a particular social issue.
Possible topics include economic speculation, the movie Contagion, or the recent media frenzy
over cannibalistic crimes. Finally, students create their own viral internet meme in any medium.
Our thematic focus on contagion will enable the primary goal of this course: to help you make
the transition to scholarly thinking and writing. Every text, including your own writing, will be
inherently interested in the idea of contagion. Texts are, after all, always both infected and
infectious, housing the ideas and opinions of past authors and striving to spread their own
arguments throughout the world. Through this lens, contagion is the very thing that facilitates
successful writing. We will analyze the ways that texts in different forms and with various
purposes negotiate this position. How, we will ask, do these texts absorb infectious ideas from
other thinkers, finding in these ideas the motives for their own unique, compelling, and
contagious claims? Once they produce these claims, how do these texts choose the best forms
and mediums for spreading them throughout the world? Through this analysis, you will learn
how to negotiate this same challenge in your own writing. You will engage with both these
external sources and your own classmates, learning how to generate motivated arguments and
how to wrestle these arguments into transmissible forms.
The Essays
Essay One—Transmitting Feeling: Analyze a Text Using a Theoretical Lens (5pp)
Assignment: Using either Margrit Shildrick or Myser and Clark as a lens, make an argument
about how one of the documentary television shows in our archive represents non-normative
bodies or vulnerability in a complex or paradoxical way.
Essay Two—Communicative Contact: Argument about a Primary Source Using
Close Reading and Contextualizing Sources (6-8pp)
Assignment: Drawing on Halberstam, Arata, and Walkowitz (choose 2) and a scholarly source
that you locate on your own, develop an argument about the way that either Lefanu’s Carmilla or
Conan Doyle’s “The Man with the Twisted Lip” expresses, negates, or complicates the terms of
a particular concern about the English imperial project and/or late 19th-century social
organization.
Essay Three—The Many Faces of Contagion: A Researched Argument in a
Specific Discipline (10-12pp)
Assignment: Choose a text (visual, literary, or multimedia) that employs a contagion narrative or
is itself “contagious” on some way. Draw on variety of sources in order to make an argument
about how your primary text uses contagion to make a claim about a specific contemporary
economic, social, or political issue.
Essay Four—Going Viral: Creating for the Public
Dean’s Date Assignment: Create your own internet meme in any medium (tumblr, video, song,
blog, photo)—one that you can imagine “going viral.” Post this meme to our course blog along
with a short paper (2-3pp) that analyzes your meme in order to make an argument about why its
form and/or content will make it go viral in our particular cultural moment.
Important Dates (all assignments should be uploaded to Blackboard unless noted)
Essay One, Draft (D1): Saturday September 27th, 11:59pm
Conferences: Week of 9/29
Essay One, Revision (R1): Friday, October 10th, 11:59pm
Essay Two, Draft (D2): Friday, October 24th, 11:59pm
Fall Break-Saturday October 25th-Sunday November 2nd
Conferences: Week of 11/3
Essay Two, Revision (R2): Wednesday, November 12th, 11:59pm.
Essay Three, Draft Prospectus: In conference, 9/17 or 9/18
Mini-Conferences on Prospectus: 9/17, 9/18
Essay Three, Revised Full Prospectus and Annotated Bibliography: Thursday, November 20th (in
class)
Essay Three, Draft (D3): Tuesday, November 25th at 11:59pm
Conferences: Week of 12/1
Essay Three, Revision (R3): Friday, December 12th, 11:59pm
Dean’s Date Assignment: Monday, January 12th, 5pm
Reflections: Tuesday, January 13 5pm
REQUIRED TEXTS
Available from Labyrinth Books on Nassau Street:
1) Lefanu, Sheridan. Best Ghost Stories.
2) Hacker, Diana. A Pocket Style Manual (5th edition).
All other texts will be distributed in class or accessible through our Blackboard site. You need to
print out and bring paper copies of all downloaded material to class.
REQUIRED MATERIALS
1) Notebook
2) Pens and pencil (necessary for on-the-spot revision!)
3) Binder (over 1 inch recommended): Despite advances in technology, I am still a paper copy
junkie—and you will be too, by the time this course is over. You’ll need a binder to keep the
many handouts/drafts/downloaded and printed documents organized!
4) 3-hole punch: see above!
THE WRITING CENTER
The Writing Center
www.princeton.edu/writing/appt
Located in Baker Hall, the Writing Center offers student writers free, one-on-one conferences
with experienced fellow writers trained to consult on assignments in any discipline. The Writing
Center is one of Princeton’s most popular academic resources, holding over 5,000 conferences a
year! Writing Fellows can help with any part of the writing process: brainstorming ideas,
developing a thesis, structuring an argument, or revising a draft. The goal of each conference is
to teach strategies that will encourage students to become astute readers and critics of their own
work. Although the Writing Center is not an editing or proofreading service, Fellows can help
students learn techniques for improving sentences and checking mechanics. As the Director of
the Writing Center, I’m partial to its awesomeness and I encourage you to sign up for an
appointment to see it in action for yourself! To do so, visit the Writing Center’s website at
www.princeton.edu/writing/appt. Writing Center Fellows also hold drop-in hours Sunday
through Thursday evenings during the semester. You can follow the center on twitter for updates
on the status of these drop-in hours and for occasional writing tips!
http://twitter.com/PrincetonWrites
OTHER ACADEMIC RESOURCES
The McGraw Center
The McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning provides academic support to Princeton
Undergraduates to help them get the most out of their coursework. Their one-on-one learning
consultations can be particularly useful for developing active reading strategies, project
management skills, and note-taking tactics. You can make an appointment for an individual
consultation by visiting http://www.princeton.edu/mcgraw/.
The Community of Scholars in our Writing Seminar—and me!
The good news is that you now have a community of other promising scholars with whom you
can discuss course material, debate a point we only briefly touched on in class, and form writing
support groups. Take advantage of this luxury! If you have a question about the material or about
course policy, please ask me sooner, rather than later. Successful writing means grappling with
some tough thought-knots and pragmatic time-management issues—if you plan ahead and
contact me with these issues ahead of time, I can likely help you come up with a solution.
POLICIES AND PROCEDURES
Or, the 13 habits of highly successful writing seminar students
Conferences
We will have four conferences over the course of the term to discuss your writing and ideas: two
individual draft conferences and, in the third unit, an individual conference on your research
proposal and a group conference on your draft. I expect you to be prepared for these
conferences—to have reviewed your writing and to have developed a plan of attack. Missed
conferences may not be rescheduled. Please note that there will be no mandatory conference to
discuss the draft of the Dean’s Date Assignment, though I will be available for consultation and
we will have a workshop class session during reading period.
Office Hours
I’m happy to meet with you outside of class and conference time to discuss your writing,
reading, progress, or any Contagion-related questions. As I have stated, however, please plan
ahead as much as possible—it’s easier for me to help you with an academic issue or to help you
develop strategies for time management when you ask before the situation becomes desperate!
To meet with me, simply speak with me or send me an email. All meetings will be held in my
office, Lauritzen D008, unless otherwise arranged.
E-mail and Blackboard Announcements
I will often use using email and our Blackboard site to relay some of the nuts and bolts of the
course, which, logistically, is quite complex. You are responsible for any information that I pass
along via these media.
Cover Letters
Each time you turn in a rough or final draft of an essay, you must provide a cover letter (one
single-spaced page, addressed to your readers and signed by you), in which you summarize your
argument, let us know what you value about what you’ve done in this draft (using specific
examples), tell us what you think you still need to work on, and (in the case of rough drafts) let
us know what you would like us to help you with. In units 2 and 3, you will also be sending me a
response letter to our conference within 24 hours, letting me know your strategy for revision. I
will also distribute protocol for these letters as well as samples on which you might model your
own and we will discuss them in class. In these letters you will be using the vocabulary from “A
Writing Lexicon” in order to best express your ideas to the members of our seminar. A thorough
cover letter should be an entire single-spaced page long.
Pre-draft Writing
In addition to the rough and final drafts of the four essays, you’ll do preliminary writing that
helps you to develop your ideas. Called “pre-drafts” and abbreviated “PD,” these exercises are
often designed to be like drafting a part of your essay, so you should write them as well as you
can, knowing you may draw on them as you put your final essay together. Please type, doublespace, and use MLA format for academic papers (study the rules in your Pocket Style Manual,
even if you think you know what this means!). These exercises will be turned in to me on the
date due; often, they will be read by your classmates or aloud in class, and sometimes I will read
them and give written feedback on them.
Paper Format
Writing assignments must be typed. For drafts and revisions, please follow the format of the
sample paper that I’ll hand out. Drafts and revisions that deviate from this format will not be
accepted. Also, always:
• Use Times New Roman 12 or its close equivalent.
• Set your margins at 1” and don’t “justify” your right-hand margin.
• Use your word-processing program’s automatic pagination function to number your pages.
Tip: Your first page will be a cover letter, so set this page number to 0 (in Word, select “Page
Numbers” from the “Insert” menu, and click on “Format”). You can click “different first
page” if you prefer not to have the number “0” show up on your letter.
• Proofread your writing for typographical, grammatical, and punctuation errors. If you
consistently make these kinds of errors, your grade will drop.
• Avoid computer disaster by regularly saving your work and periodically printing out drafts
while you write. Technical difficulty is not a legitimate reason for late work. Saving your
work to Google docs as well will ensure that if your personal computer crashes, a copy will
still exist somewhere in the internet. Google docs has saved my sanity more than once and it
will likely save yours sometime during the semester.
Submission Method
To make the feedback economy of this class possible, you may be submitting some writing at
odd hours via our course Blackboard site at http://blackboard.princeton.edu. Simply log on and
select our writing seminar, then click on our Shared Dropbox. You are responsible for
submitting by the deadlines outlined on this syllabus and the individual essay schedules, so give
yourself time to deal with any technical difficulties you may encounter. Blackboard is relatively
intuitive to use, but feel free to contact the Blackboard help desk if you need assistance: 8-0737
or blackboard@princeton.edu.
Hard copies and working with drafts in class
To succeed in this class, you’ll need to spread the revision process out over the two or three
week period between rough draft and final due date, rather than leaving it for the night before; to
help you do this, we’ll often work with your latest draft (in printed form) in class. I will let you
know when to bring a pre-draft or draft with you to class. You would be wise to bring two copies
to class, in fact, so that you can write on one and turn the other in to me. Please do not show up
to class asking if you can email me a pre-draft, draft, or revision because you’ve had “printing
problems.” This will constitute a missed assignment.
Deadlines
All deadlines in this Writing Seminar are firm. Except in the case of medical or family
emergency or religious observance, I give no individual extensions. If, due to such an
emergency, you cannot meet a deadline, please contact me as soon as possible so that we may
work out an alternative schedule of due dates and times. In the event of a medical emergency,
you must produce a note from the University Health Service. In the event of a family
emergency, please ask your residential college Dean or Director of Studies to contact me by email or telephone.
There are serious consequences to missing deadlines. A late pre-draft assignment or a late draft
(which includes drafts emailed late because of “printing problems”) will receive no written
feedback. A late revision will be graded down by a third of a grade for every 24 hours that it’s
late, up until the final extended deadline, at which point you may not complete the course (see
the “Completion of Work” policy below).
These policies have two concrete benefits for everyone in the class: (1) you may be less likely to
fall behind if you know that your actions (and inactions) have real consequences, and (2) you can
count on being treated the same as your classmates, which is another way of saying that no one
will receive preferential treatment (by, for example, having immunity to overrun a deadline in
order to work longer on a piece of writing). As a writer myself, I know how hard it is to bite the
proverbial bullet and submit a piece of writing. We often want extra time to polish one last
sentence or re-organize one last paragraph. But what we most often need in these cases is
feedback—my late policies will help your to take the leap and submit your writing, even when
you don’t think it is yet “ready.”
Attendance
Your active engagement in writing workshops and other in-class activities is integral to the
Writing Seminar experience, which is grounded in a strong community of readers and writers.
For this reason, you are normally expected to attend every class, with two absences considered
cause for concern, and more than four absences grounds for not being eligible to complete the
course.
*Please note that a late arrival to class of more than 15 minutes will count as an absence.
Completion of Work
Writing Seminars are organized as a planned sequence of assignments, with each piece of
writing building on previous writing. For this reason, it’s essential to complete all four of the
major assignments to pass the course, and you’ll need to complete them within the schedule of
the course, not in the last few days of the semester.
If you fail to submit an acceptable essay or Dean’s Date assignment on time, you’ll receive an email from me specifying (1) the new date by which you must submit the late work and (2) any
late penalties that will apply (these will be waived in the case of documented medical problems
or family emergencies). To help you access support quickly, the e-mail will be copied to your
Director of Studies, as well as the Writing Program Director. If you receive an email from your
professor about a missing essay, please respond promptly. Your professor, Director of Studies,
and the Writing Program Director want to help you succeed in the course, so early and open
communication is key. If you fail to meet the new deadline, you may not complete the course.
Acknowledgment of Original Work
This course follows Princeton University policies on plagiarism, stated in Rights, Rules, and
Responsibilities and discussed at greater length in Academic Integrity at Princeton. According to
these policies, you must properly cite your sources to distinguish your ideas from others’. You
must also write the following pledge at the end of all drafts and revisions and then sign your
name: “This paper represents my own work in accordance with University regulations.”
Suspicions of plagiarism will be reported to the Committee on Discipline and may have serious
consequences.
Acknowledgment of Feedback and Support
In keeping with common scholarly practice, you should express your indebtedness in an
Acknowledgments section or footnote to anyone who gave you feedback on drafts or contributed
informally to your thinking on your topic—for example, your classmates, roommates, and family
members. Exceptions are the professor of this course and Writing Center Fellows.
Final Grades
Grading Breakdown
The majority of your final grade comes from the major writing assignments. They are weighted
more significantly as the semester goes along in order to reward your improvement and
acknowledge the assignments’ increasing complexity. The other 25% comes from your
performance in other areas. Here is the grade breakdown:
15%
25%
30%
5%
15%
10%
Paper #1
Paper #2
Paper #3
Research Proposal for Paper #3
Dean’s Date Assignment
Citizenship (class participation, cover letters, conference responses, draft
responses, and participation in writing groups)
Please note that I expect your revisions to be free of grammatical, spelling, and formatting errors.
Take care to use your style guide (the Diana Hacker text). I’m happy to explain any technical
issues that seem confusing or obscure—just ask! Failure to meet these expectations may result in
a lowered final grade.
Grading Standards on Written Work
When grading, I evaluate the words on the page. Although neither effort nor improvement is
factored into the essay grade, writing does tend to improve through revision. Effort and
engagement are accounted for in the course citizenship grade. Below are the common standards
to which papers are held in the Writing Seminars. Pluses and minuses represent shades of
difference.
A paper in the A range demonstrates a high degree of command in the fundamentals of
academic writing: it advances an interesting, arguable thesis; establishes a compelling motive to
suggest why the thesis is original or worthwhile; employs a logical and progressive structure;
analyzes evidence insightfully and in depth; and draws from well-chosen sources.
A B-range paper resembles an A-range paper in some ways, but may exhibit a vague or
inconsistently argued thesis; establish a functional but unsubstantial motive; employ a generally
logical but somewhat disorganized or underdeveloped structure; include well-chosen but sometimes
unanalyzed and undigested evidence; or use sources in a limited fashion; confusing prose may at
times obscure the argument.
A C-range paper resembles a B-range paper in some ways, but may also feature a confusing or
descriptive thesis; provide a simplistic motive or none at all; lack a coherent structure or rely on an
overly rigid structure like the five paragraph essay; fail to present enough evidence, or present
evidence that is insufficiently analyzed; and drop in sources without properly contextualizing or
citing them.
A D paper (there is no D+ or D- at Princeton) resembles a C-range paper but lacks a thesis or
motive. It may have an undeveloped structure and draw on little analyzed evidence and sources.
A D paper has trouble engaging with the assignment and may not show awareness of the
conventions of academic discourse. It does, however, show signs of beginning to engage with the
issues, topics, and sources of the assignment.
An F paper is similar to a D paper but is half the assigned length and addresses the assignment
superficially.
A 0 paper is less than half the assigned length and does not fulfill the basic expectations of the
assignment (for example, in a research paper, there is evidence of little or no research). Unlike an
F paper, a 0 does not count as successful completion of the assignment and puts the student in
jeopardy of failing the course.
Citizenship Grade:
The Citizenship portion of your final grade will be evaluated using the following criteria and the
accompanying grading scale.
Citizenship Criteria
— The student is always on time and prepared.
— The student participates actively in class, consistently contributing thoughtful and
thought-provoking comments and questions; speaks not only to the professor but to other
students; works energetically in small group or pair activities; overall, improves the day-to-day
quality of the seminar for everyone.
— The student writes cover letters that reflect thoughtfully and critically on their own writing.
— The student submits thoughtful and complete pre-draft assignments.
— The student writes draft response letters that offer fellow students substantive criticism and
suggestions for revision while demonstrating constructive engagement with the paper at hand.
— The student participates actively in group draft workshops and conferences, joining in the
conversation about their fellow group members’ essays.
—The student comes to individual conferences prepared to actively discuss revision strategies
for the draft, takes notes during the conference, and, if required, prepares a thoughtful conference
response letter.
A student who earns an A-range grade for citizenship meets or surpasses all of the above criteria
in a striking way; a student who earns a B-range grade for citizenship commendably satisfies
most or all of the above criteria; a student who earns a C-range grade for citizenship meets few
of the above criteria.
Midterm Grade
To calculate your midterm grade, I’ll average your grade on the revision of essay #1 and your
current citizenship grade. Please note that for your final course grade, essay #1 will count as 15%
and citizenship 10%.
After Midterm Week, I will communicate to you your provisional citizenship grade. If your
citizenship performance then changes (for better or worse), this change will be reflected in a
higher or lower final grade for citizenship.
Sample of MLA Style
On the next page, please find a sample of an essay that uses MLA citation style.
MLA Style Example
[Student Name]
Wri Course Number
Professor Khristina Gonzalez
[Date]
“Enlightening Dracula: The Late Victorian Villain and the Regeneration of Liberal Society”
Reading Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula has long seemed a matter of diagnosing deviance,
a critical game of “find the pathology” aimed at deciding precisely which aberrant identity Count
Dracula best embodies. Scholars have read Stoker’s iconic vampire as a stand-in for the
monstrosity of the usurious Jew, the contagious homosexual, the decadent aristocrat, the
rebellious colonial subject, the corrupt English landlord, the New Woman, and the atavistic
criminal.1 Dracula, put simply, has come to represent all the things that Victorian ideology
considered “bad.” In her 1993 article, “Technologies of Monstrosity,” Judith Halberstam took
this critical trend to its logical conclusion: because Dracula can so easily signify any Victorian
deviance, he can never be identified with any particular deviancy—he is deviance itself. He is a
“distilled version of all others produced by and within fictional text, sexual science, and
psychopathology” (334). In this sense, she argues, Dracula is the ideal Gothic villain: he can be
“all difference to all people” (349).
WORKS CITED
Ablow, Rachel. Marriage of Minds: Reading Sympathy in the Victorian Marriage Plot. Stanford:
Stanford UP, 2007. Print.
See Zanger for the argument that “Dracula derived its popularity from its ability to demonstrate in a socially
acceptable form a body of hostile perceptions of the newly arrived Jews” (36). Christopher Craft’s article famously
locates the source of the vampire’s horror in its hybrid sex/sexuality and its ability to induce erotic desire in other
people. Bigelow claims that the novel’s primary concern lies in its fear that market capitalism might not represent an
authentic subjective freedom in the ways that it promises. Stephen Arata’s 1990 article first initiated the critical
tradition of reading the novel as a manifestation of imperial anxiety. Luke Gibbons argued against aligning Stoker
fuller with the English perspective. Roth’s psychoanalytic approach sees Dracula’s attack as representative of an
anxiety about maternal sexuality, while Senf sees in Stoker a pathological representation of the New Woman figure.
Tomaszewska reads Dracula as modeled on Lombroso’s atavistic criminal.
1
Arata, Stephen D. “The Occidental Tourist: Dracula and the Anxiety of Reverse Colonization.”
Victorian Studies 33.4 (1990): 621-645. Print.
Armstrong, Nancy. “Imperialist Nostalgia in Wuthering Heights.” Wuthering Heights. Ed. Linda
Peterson. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2003. 430-450. Print.
Baldick, Chris and Robert Mighall. “Gothic Criticism.” A Companion to the Gothic. Ed. David
Punter. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell (2001). 209-228. Print.
Balibar, Etienne. “Class Racism.” Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities. London: Verso,
1991. Print.
Baxter, George Wythen. Book of the Bastiles. London: J. Stephens, 1841. Print.
Bentham, Jeremy. Chrestomathia. London: Payne and Foss, 1816. Print.
---. “Essay on Indirect Legislation.” A Bentham Reader. Ed. Mary Peter Mack. New York:
Pegasus, 1962. Print.
---. Panopticon. London: Reprinted and sold by T. Payne, 1791. Print.
---. “Pauper Management.” The Works of Jeremy Bentham. Ed. Sir John
Bowring. Edinburgh: W. Tait, 1843. Print.
---. The Principles of Morals and Legislation. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1879. Print.
---. Bentham, Jeremy. Theory of Legislation. Trans. Etienne Dumont. Theory of Legislation.
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, 1908. Print.
Class Breakdown Unit One
Professor: Khristina Gonzalez
Class Time: Tues/Thurs 1:30-2:50
Classroom: Hargadon G002
Office: Lauritzen D008
Office hours: by appt
Email: kfg2@princeton.edu
Essay Assignment
Essay One—Transmitting Feeling: Analyze a Text Using a Theoretical Lens (5pp)
Assignment: Using either Margrit Shildrick or Myser and Clark as a lens, make an argument
about how one of the documentary television shows in our archive represents non-normative
embodiment, corporal disability, or vulnerability in a complex or paradoxical way.
Helpful hints: An excellent essay will not only use either Shildrick or Myser and Clark to
illuminate the documentary, but will use the documentary to refine or critique the theory that
your chosen critical text sets forth.
Sources:
Myser, Catherine and David Clark. “‘Fixing’ Katie and Eilish: Medical Documentaries and the
Subjection of Conjoined Twins.” Literature and Medicine 17:1 (1998) 45-67.
Shildrick, Margrit. “Becoming Vulnerable: Contagious Encounters and the Ethics of Risk.”
Journal of the Medical Humanities. 21:4 (2000): 215-227.
Pre-draft: (1.1) Complete the television analysis “worksheet” distributed in class. (1.2) In one
paragraph (200 words), identify a complexity, paradox, or tension in the way that your
documentary represents non-normative bodies.
Goals of the Unit 1 Essay Assignment:
—Find a motive that guides your writing and that you think will matter to your readers.
—Pose a thesis that is contestable and thus worthy of argument.
—Practice gathering evidence through the process of close reading a text, in this case, a visual
text.
—Explain how your evidence supports your argument through convincing analyses. Evidence
does not speak for itself and can be interpreted in many ways. Work to convince your readers of
your claims and your overall thesis through thoughtful analysis of evidence.
—Structure your essay in a way that best conveys the logic of your argument, avoiding the fiveparagraph essay format.
— Employ a lens text to help illuminate the motivating question about your primary text.
—Engage with your critical source (lens text) not only by applying its theories but also refining
or critiquing them.
Daily Schedule
Week 1*
*All reading and writing assignments are due the day they are listed.
Tues September 16th
 In class: Introduction to Course Topic, Focus on Keywords
Keywords: What is Contagion?
Movie Clip: Dawn of the Dead; Movie Clip: Mary Poppins
Read and Discuss: “Keyword,” by Gordon Harvey
Begin reading: Shildrick, Margrit.“Becoming Vulnerable”
Thurs September 18
• Reading Assignment:
Course information; Shildrick, Margrit “Vulnerable Bodies;” Myser and Clark. “’Fixing’ Katie
and Eilish: Medical Documentaries and the Subjection of Conjoined Twins.”
• Writing Assignment:
1) Choose one keyword from either Meyser and Clark or Shildrick and provide the author’s
particular definition of that keyword (Hint: this definition may not be explicitly stated in
the text).
2) Write one paragraph (200 words) in which you 1) explain the major argument of the
article (the “with-the-grain” reading and 2) explain how the chosen keyword is important
to making this overall argument
• In-class: Focus on Thesis and Motive
Read Lexicon “Thesis,” “Motive”
Discuss Shildrick; Myser and Clark through these lexicon terms
Watch/discuss clip from TLC’s Abby and Brittany through Shildrick; Myser and Clark
Practice Motive discovery by identifying complications, tensions, or paradoxes.
Week 2
Tues September 23
• Reading Assignment:
Selections on formal film analysis (to be distributed in class/on blackboard);
Explore documentary archive and watch one documentary.
• Writing Assignment:
Pre-draft 1.1 and 1.2
• In-class: Focus: Formal Analysis and Thesis Formation
Discuss the formal analysis in Myser and Clark.
Television analysis discussion (students present short analyses);
Thesis formation game
Thurs September 25
 Reading Assignment:
The Lexicon
 Writing Assignment:
Assignment: Working draft (2 pages, motive and thesis)
 In-class: Focus- How to Workshop, Writing Cover Letters
Work with drafts, revising theses, using evidence, using the language of the lexicon
Essay One, Draft (D1): Saturday September 27th, 11:59pm
Week 3: Draft Workshops/ConferencesTues September 30
• Reading Assignment:
Student drafts (to be distributed by Monday at 10am), review lexicon, handout on evidence
 Writing Assignment:
Draft response to student writers
• In-class: Focus: Revising thesis based on evidence, Introductions as revised argument
Student Draft Workshop
Thurs October 2
• Reading Assignment:
Student drafts
• Writing Assignment:
Draft response to student writer
• In-class: Focus: Structure, Conclusion
Student Draft Workshop
***
Essay Two—Communicative Contact: Argument about a Primary Source Using
Close Reading and Contextualizing Sources (6-8pp)
Assignment: Drawing on Halberstam, Arata, and Walkowitz (choose 2) and a scholarly source
that you locate on your own, develop an argument about the way that either Lefanu’s Carmilla or
Conan Doyle’s “The Man with the Twisted Lip” expresses, negates, or complicates the terms of
a particular concern about the English imperial project and/or late 19th-century social
organization.
Helpful Hints: The best essays will focus on a particular social “context” of the imperial project
(gender, race, religion, class) and will show how the literary text uses metaphors of contagion to
confront unsettling and/or promising ways in which this social context as a result of
international contact. Specificity is your ally here!
Sources:
Walkowitz, Judith. City of Dreadful Delight. Excerpts.
Arata, Stephen. “The Occidental Tourist: Dracula and the Anxiety of Reverse Colonization.”
Victorian Studies. 1990: 33.4
Halberstam, Judith. “Technologies of Monstrosity”
Pre-draft:
(1.1) Create a 1-page “conversation” between Walkowitz, Arata, and Halberstam. How would
Walkowitz explain her notion of the city as a space of boundary breaking to Arata? How would
Arata appropriate, complicate, and refine that model in his discussion of Dracula? How would
Halberstam complicate Arata’s account of Dracula? End by working to find one point of
consensus between these three sources. (1.2) Select either Carmilla or “The Man with the
Twisted Lip.” Using one specific paragraph as your site of analysis, make an argument (in 2
paragraphs) about how the literary text would agree/disagree/or question this point of
consensus—and why?
Goals of the Unit 2 Essay Assignment:
Refine the skills developed in the unit 1 essay: find a motive, pose a thesis that is contestable,
practice gathering evidence through the process of close reading (this time, in a literary text),
explain how your evidence supports your argument, and structure your essay in a way that best
conveys the logic of your argument.
Develop additional skills:
—Establish how you are joining and contributing to ongoing conversations that matter to
academic readers and communities.
—Integrate secondary source material that does at least one of the following: establishes a
problem or question worth addressing (i.e. motive), supplies context, provides key terms or
concepts, presents a counterargument, and/or establishes a reading that you might extend, refine,
or critique.
Daily Schedule
Week 4
Tues October 7
• Reading Assignment: “The Man with the Twisted Lip”
• Writing Assignment: select one paragraph of “Twisted Lip” that you found
intriguing/distressing/complicated/paradoxical, etc. and jot down some
notes about why you found it so.
• In-class: Close reading, language analysis; motivating questions
Focus on “Motivating Moves”
Thurs October 9
• Reading Assignment: Walkowitz (excerpts)
• Writing Assignment: Write one 200-word paragraph in which you identify
a key term in Walkowitz, make an argument about how she defines it and
uses it in her work, and reflect on how that term might illuminate an aspect
of the “Man with the Twisted Lip.”
• In-class: Source discussion (paraphrase, practice summary); lens discussion
(how can Walkowitz help you further “motivate” your questions about
“MWTL”?)
Essay One, Revision (R1): Due Friday, October 10th, 11:59pm
Week 5
Tuesday October 14
• Reading Assignment: Carmilla, Stephen Arata, “The Occidental Tourist”
• Writing Assignment: select one paragraph of Carmilla that you found
intriguing/distressing/complicated/paradoxical, etc. and write a motivating
question based on that paragraph; key word assignment on Arata
• In-class: Discuss Carmilla through Arata
Focus on “scholarly conversations/sources as motivation” in Arata
Thurs October 16
• Reading Assignment: Halberstam
• Writing Assignment: PD (predraft) assignment
• In-class: Discuss Halberstam
Focus on Structure
Focus on “narrowing your scope” (or, why you are not yet Halberstam…)
MLA International Bibliography source workshop
Week 6 (Midterm Week)
Tues October 21
• Reading Assignment: Source of your own, Gaipa article
• Writing Assignment: One paragraph summary of source—motive, thesis;
Gaipa cartoon (Halberstam, Walkowitz, Arata, your source)
• In-class: Inserting yourself in conversation
Workshop on “Generating a Thesis”
Thurs October 23
• Reading Assignment: None
• Writing Assignment: Chunk 5 pages
• In-class: Workshop, framing your argument
Essay Two, Draft (D2): Friday, October 24th, 11:59pm
FALL BREAK Sat October 25-Sun Nov 2
Week 7: Workshops, Conferences
Conferences: Week of 11/3
Tues November 4
• Reading Assignment: Student Drafts
• Writing Assignment: Draft Responses
• In-class: Workshop, Focus on source use, “scholarly intervention”
Unit Three
Essay Assignment
Essay Three—The Many Faces of Contagion: A Researched Argument in a
Specific Discipline (10-12pp)
Assignment: Choose a text (visual, literary, or multimedia) that employs a contagion narrative.
Draw on variety of sources in order to make an argument about how your primary text uses
contagion to make a claim about a specific contemporary economic, social, or political issue.
Pre-draft:
(3.1) Draft a preliminary research proposal and annotated bibliography.
(3.2) Revise research prospectus and annotated bibliography (5% of final course grade).
Goals of the Unit 3 Essay Assignment:
Refine the skills developed in the unit 1 essay: find a motive, pose a thesis that is contestable,
practice gathering evidence through the process of close reading explain how your evidence
supports your argument, and structure your essay in a way that best conveys the logic of your
argument.
Develop additional skills:
—Conduct scholarly research.
—Use your research to develop a motivated, arguable, and compelling thesis.
—Critically evaluate sources and use them in a deliberate way to advance an argument.
—Structure a sustained longer argument.
—Engage substantially with objections and alternatives that readers may offer. Consider how to
integrate your responses to such objections and alternatives into the structure of your argument.
Daily Schedule
Thurs November 6
 Reading Assignment: Wayne Booth, Crafting Research (excerpts);
 Writing Assignment:
Post on LibGuide:
(http://libguides.princeton.edu/contagion?hs=a&gid=1301 )
One question for librarian about research developed from a difficulty you
had locating sources in unit two (100 words)
• In-class: Library Visit.
Focus: What is a discipline? Topic brainstorming
Week 8
Tues Nov 11
• Reading Assignment: Find/watch/skim your chosen primary text or object
of analysis (all written texts should be under 200pp in less, unless you have
cleared it with me first)
• Writing Assignment: Identify the discipline of your project; one guiding
research question (locate a “motive:” a paradox, issue, complication in your
text); one database you might use to find sources
• In-class: Challenges of Research; Forming research questions
Students present their disciplinary interests and primary texts, group
assistance forming questions; Sloppy Joe Plagiarism prevention workshop
Essay Two, Revision (R2): Wednesday, November 12th, 11:59pm.
Thurs Nov 13
• Reading Assignment: Locate and read one source that will help you answer
your initial research question.
• Writing Assignment: Identify discipline and argument of article (summarize
argument in 50-100 words). Write 100 words on how you went about
finding this source and what difficulty that you had navigating the research
process.
• In-class: Library Visit: Disciplinary conventions/how to find sources in a
discipline
About Proposal Conferences: We’ll discuss your ideas for your paper in short (30-minute)
conferences. Come to the conference prepared with a short proposal (protocol to be distributed
separately) and to discuss the research challenges that you anticipate.
Proposal Conferences-November 17th, 18th, 19th
Week 9
Tuesday November 18
•Delarna Witch Craze Student Essay.
Reading Assignment: Skim six articles:
1) Freedman, Jonathan and Deborah Perlick. “Crowding, Contagion, and
Laughter.” Journal of Experimental Pyschology.
2) Bowden, Mark. “The Enemy Within.” The Atlantic.
3) Edwards, Sebastian. “Contagion.” World Economy.
4) Davis, Cynthia. “Contagion as Metaphor.” American Literary History.
5) Kudlick, Catherine. “Giving is Deceiving: Cholera, Charity, and the Quest for
Authority in 1832.” French Historical Studies.
6) One article of your own choosing!
• Writing Assignment: One paragraph (200 words) on the different “source
use” in these disciplines focusing on the following question: how do the
different citation styles reflect the different disciplinary ideas about the
relationship between the new argument and source use?
• In-class: methodology discussion (ethos in different disciplines)
Essay Three, Revised Full Prospectus and Annotated Bibliography: Thursday, November 20th
(in class)
Thursday November 20
 Reading: Individual work/sources
 Writing Assignment: Revised Proposals/Annotated Bibliography (6-8
sources) (Will be graded, protocol distributed separately)
 In-class: TBA
Week 10
Tues November 25
• Reading Assignment: Individual work/sources
• Writing Assignment: Draft
• In-class: TBA
Essay Three, Draft (D3): Tuesday, November 25th at 11:59pm
Thanksgiving Break! Wednesday, November 26-Sunday November 2
Week 11: Workshop and Conferences
About Group Conferences: We’ll be having outside-of-class group conferences on your drafts.
You will need to read the drafts of the other 2 members of your Writing Group before your
conference and be prepared for discussion. For the group conferences, you don’t have to write
out full Draft Responses, but you should make copious notes to speak from. (You do have to
write Draft Responses for our in-class workshops.)
Tues December 2
• Reading Assignment: Student Essays
• Writing Assignment: Student Draft Responses
• In-class: Focus on Structure—where do all the pieces go?
Thurs December 4
• Reading Assignment: Student Essays
• Writing Assignment: Student Draft Responses
• In-class: Focus on Analysis—does evidence “tie” to thesis?
Week 12
Tues December 9
• Reading Assignment: Student Essays
• Writing Assignment: Student Draft Responses
• In-class: Focus on Mechanics
Thurs December 11 (Last Class  !!!)
• Reading Assignment: Articles on Viral Media, tbd
• Writing Assignment: Continue working on R3
• In-class: Introduction to Dean’s Date Assignment
R3 due on Friday, December 12, 11:59pm
Holiday Break December 13-January 4
Reading Period (January 4-January 13)
Thurs January 8: In class: Workshop for the Dean’s Date Assignment
Dean’s Date Assignment (DDA) due on Monday, January 13th at 5pm: Upload your
assignment to our class blog.
End of Term Reflection due on Tuesday, January 14th at 5pm: Upload to blackboard