WR 111 and WR 112 Courses (for Multilingual Students)
WR 120 and WR 151/152/153 Courses
Upper-Level WR Courses
For more information:
- Visit MyBU to view the number of open seats available in each section and to register for classes.
- View Registration FAQs here.
- Consult the table below for an additional description of topics listed above.
Topic |
Additional Description |
1968–1969: Hope and Horror | This course examines the social and political upheavals that rocked American society in 1968-1969. |
AI Philosophy and Ethics | An exploration of the ethical and philosophical challenges presented by developing AI technology. |
American Environmental History | We examine contested, complicated relationships between nature and culture’s historic interaction. |
American Manifesto | From Ben Franklin to Beyoncé, this class examines classic rags-to-riches narratives of many genres. |
American Short Stories | How has the American short story genre evolved? What can short stories teach us about ourselves? |
Art and Justice in Boston | We examine intersections between visual art, social justice, reform, and advocacy in our city. |
Art and Social Change | We explore the ways in which art can transform societal constrictions into new opportunities. |
Art/Science Intersections | We explore both art and science as inquisitive practices to better understand our world. |
Artificial America | From faux meat to plastic plants, this course explores the cultural politics of the fake. |
Asians Are People of Color | A writing course on race relations and identity politics focused on Asian American narratives. |
Beyond Night: Elie Wiesel | This class will NOT focus on Wiesel’s memoir Night but his plays, essays, Hasidic tales, and more. |
At The Table | Explore the cultivation of food, and how societal pressures change our relationship to it. |
Black Female Lives Matter | We examine contemporary representations of the lived experiences of Black girls/women in America. |
Boston Brutalism Now | What is Brutalist architecture and why does it matter? We explore the raw concrete of Boston. |
Boston Community Art | A look at social issues as art and neighborhoods come together through research/multimodal projects |
Boston Films Now | We learn and write about Boston through watching Boston films and make our own film about the city. |
Boston Jazz Now | We examine the evolution and history of Jazz and attend live Jazz performances in Boston. |
Boston Nature Narratives Now | Explore Boston’s green spaces! Write and read reflections on the natural world in an urban landscape |
Boston Social Justice Now | We explore gentrification, racism, city government, public education, with some off-campus events. |
Boston Sports Now | We explore Boston sports teams and venues and their historical and contemporary cultural roles. |
Boston Wildlife Now | We visit Boston greenspaces to explore how urban habitats and humans transform animal behavior. |
Boston’s Natural History Now | We explore Boston’s greener and wilder spaces with outside-the-classroom adventures. |
BU and the Culture of College | Using social science methods, we study any aspect of college itself, with a focus on BU. |
Burning Questions | Students complete a semester-long research project on a topic of their choosing. |
Business and Culture in the US | This class explores the relationship between US business and culture from 1865 to the present. |
Case Studies in Fairy Tales | Study fairy tales and retellings from diverse critical viewpoints and research one tale in depth. |
College Myths and Realities | We explore myths about higher education to understand the experiences of modern college students. |
Commodifying Care | Explores classism, racism, and sexism in multimedia depictions of care workers. |
Communicating Science | Explore how scientific info evolves when communicated to diverse audiences through different media. |
Conformity and Rebellion | We explore the topic through psychological, literary, cultural, or other lenses and genres. |
Contemporary Art in Boston | We examine intersections between visual art, social justice, reform, and advocacy in our city. |
Creative Nonfiction | A deep dive into rebellious, genre-bending American journalists of the 1960s and 70s. |
Dance as Resistance | We study dance as resistance and rebellion against cultural oppression and censorship of languages. |
Debating Hollywood | We explore Hollywood as a site of artistic, scholarly, and critical debate shaped by diverse views. |
Deception Across Disciplines | We explore deception across three distinct academic disciplines. |
Education and Social Issues | We discuss education as a social and cultural practice with an emphasis on the role of meritocracy. |
Education and Work | A study of the relationship between American public and higher education and the world of work. |
Environments and You | Lit/film course explores dynamics between environmentalism, social contexts, and personal identity. |
Ethical Missteps/Public Health | We examine medical and public health challenges from their origins to ongoing racial and gender disparities. |
Ethics in America Today | We explore the philosophical dimensions of key ethical issues in contemporary American public debate |
Family Snaps and Stories | Family photography in three modes: student home archives, photojournalism, and art photography. |
Food and Cultural Identity | We investigate the role of food in culture, expression, and identity. |
Food, Identity, and Society | |
Food for Thought | We study food in a range of contexts, including cultural, environmental, political, and personal. |
Future of Video Game Studies | Are video games art—or addiction? Our class readings explore evolving global views on video games. |
Garbage Culture | How does our waste shape who we are? This course looks for answers in the trash can of US culture. |
Gender and Narrative | We explore authority in contemporary literature through a lens of gender and narrative theory. |
Gender in Short Stories | An exploration of the role of gender in short stories written by women in the first wave of feminism |
Ghosts and the Undead | This course explores ghosts and other undead figures (vampires, zombies) in literature and film. |
Global Documentary | We study how documentaries represent their own and other cultures. |
Global Literature | We read global literature in translation, analyze these texts, and write literature of our own. |
Global Tragic Drama | Philosophical & political analysis of plays (ancient Greece to modern nations like India, Iraq,etc.) |
Hamilton versus Jefferson | We examine Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson’s competing visions of America. |
Hispanic New York City | A study of the writers and artists of 20th and 21st century Hispanic New York City |
Hollywood Contradicts Itself | We examine Hollywood as an industry and a filmmaking style defined by contradictory ideas. |
How Do We Write about the Net? | Postmodern fiction captures the chaos of tech & media in our lives. How does it show us what’s next? |
HumanPlus | In HumanPlus, we explore the social and ethical implications of the prospect of human enhancement. |
I Want to Believe | We closely study the mythologies, cultural origins, and research on UFOs and Bigfoot. |
Imagining Vietnam | In this course, students write about the Vietnam War’s polarizing influence on American culture. |
Improvisation Now! | We study the role of improvisation in the creation of different types of art, including live comedy. |
Indigenous Resistance | What cultural and political interventions do Indigenous thinkers propose toward decolonization? |
Intertwining Curious Minds Now | Using field trips, we explore curiosity as collaborative adventure between humans and other species. |
Israel: Film and Literature | We examine contemporary, diverse, and complicated Israeli society through film and literature. |
Italian American Speech | Examination of Italian American speech-‘Goombish’-in the context of speech norms and speech variety. |
Italian Americans | Examination of Italian American history and culture through film, literature and ethnography. |
Japanese Anime: The Reality of Fantasy | How do Japanese Anime directors use fantasy to speak to the realities of the human condition? |
Language and Technology | The class examines how our use and the form of our language has changed because of technology. |
Lincoln & His Legacies | Lincoln’s life, writing, & legacy. Is he hero, myth, leader, follower? Iconic symbol? White savior? |
Literary Gender & Sexuality | We examine what gender and sexuality in historical literature can teach us about identity today. |
Living Writers Now | With Boston’s literary scene as our classroom, we read the work of authors who visit our class. |
Lyricism in Hip Hop and Rap | In this class, we explore the poetics of hip hop and rap lyrics from the 1970s to present. |
Making Film Reviews | Through research, we learn to craft film reviews in formats including podcasts and videos. |
Meat in America | This course uses meat, in its various forms, to explore identity, ethics, labor, and appetite. |
Medical Debates | Students examine medical debates and their relationships to society. |
Medicine and Ethics | Issues and implications of ethics in medicine and healthcare. |
Medieval/Renaissance Monsters | We examine visual representations of human & non-human monsters in Medieval & Renaissance Europe. |
Memoir as Art Form | In this course, we read three memoirs and compose memoirs, presentations and analyses. |
Metaphor in Advertising | We explore how metaphor is used to connect goods and services to fulfilling deeper human needs. |
Migration culture | We explore how migration is represented in culture–in what we read, watch, consume, and create. |
Morality: 4 Anime Directors | We consider the role of morality in the films of four Japanese Anime directors. |
Museum Writing | How can museum writing invite people in—or keep them out? Explore via art, objects, and exhibitions. |
Myths at the Margins | We explore myths in many genres that address problems of identity, reality, and social crisis. |
Mystery Fiction Crime & Justice | Explores mystery fiction from Poe to the Golden Age, investigating how crime and justice are framed. |
Narrating the End of the World | We examine depictions of climate catastrophe across American fiction and non-fiction. |
Narratives of Race and Racism | Why have racist narratives permeated American culture? Do counternarratives open new possibilities? |
Nature Poetry | In this seminar, we study how poets and writers have engaged with the natural world. |
Navigating College Today | We explore the lives of modern college students and the various hurdles and challenges they face. |
Nonsense in Literature & Film | We examine the form and philosophy of the genre of nonsense in comics, film, and literature. |
Ocean and Shorelines | Through literature, art, and indigeneity, we explore diverse perspectives on our sea connections. |
Oratory in America | Orators challenge & inspire us. In speeches, podcasts, TedTalks, we hear & learn from new and old |
Performing Class | Examines cultural representations of social class as a performative and unstable identity. |
Playing for Keeps | Students design a board game and carry out a research project on a topic of their choosing. |
Public Art | We consider the form, function, and funding of works of art in outdoor, accessible spaces. |
Queers on Campus!: LGBTQ+ | This class looks at LGBTQIA+ coming-of-age stories at universities and private schools since 1970. |
Race and Robots | In this course, we explore how technology is racialized and gendered in science fiction narratives. |
Race, Class, & Gender Today | We explore class mobility, the meaning of “feminism,” and the myth of post-racial society in the US. |
Radical Latinx Artists in USA | Explore how cultural identities in the USA have been redefined & influenced by Latinx artists. |
Rap: Race, Idenity, Justice | Through the lens of Hip Hop, students examine themes of identity, social justice and identity. |
Reimagining Fairy Tales | Write about classic and modern fairy tales from critical, creative, and social justice perspectives. |
Reimagining Happiness | We look for gaps in our understanding of happiness and explore happiness-enhancing strategies |
Religions & Global Health | We explore how religious traditions around the world inform, contest, and transform public health. |
Reproduction in American Lit | We explore various representations of reproduction and correlated topics/issues |
Retelling Stories | We examine how creators shape truth across journalistic, filmic, and comic adaptations. |
Revolutionary Literature | We explore art and social justice in times of political crisis from a global perspective. |
Rewriting Mythologies | Explore modern myth and folklore retellings across cultures and rewrite a myth of your choice. |
Rhetorics of Remix | Explore methods and meanings of remix and adaptation from ancient Greece to the digital present. |
Science Fiction and Philosophy | Science Fiction writing and media through the lens of philosophy |
Science Fiction as Anthropology | We examine the interaction of the familiar and strange through science fiction films and texts. |
Science Writing and Society | We examine the various ways that science is communicated among scientists and to the public. |
Short Fiction | We examine the world through the lens of fiction and how stories reflect or direct society. |
Sí se puede: Latinos in the US | Examines diverse Latiné identities, families and communities through literature, film and journalism |
Sociology of Health & Illness | Sociological perspectives on the social determinants of health and healthcare delivery in the U.S. |
Standard English? | We explore English accents and dialects and why they matter. |
Storytelling Now | From field trip to author visits, we explore storytelling traditions through a social justice lens. |
Street Corner Society | A social study of Boston’s Italian North End in the context of William Foote Whyte’s ethnography. |
Teaching College Writing | Course supports GWFs in their first semester teaching WR 120 and prepares them to teach WR 15x. |
Technology: Promises and Risks | Study technology’s impact and future in media through discussion, writing, and hands-on projects. |
The American Defense Industry | In this course we explore the American defense industry from its inception to today. |
The American Individualist | This seminar explores the roots and evolution of American ideas about personal identity and community. |
The Atomic Age | We consider how humanity has—or has not—come to terms with apocalyptic annihilation. |
The Charles River Now | We explore the Charles River and its communities through outside-the-classroom adventures. |
The Coens and Genres of Film | We explore the celebrated films of the Coen brothers and their referencing of various genres of film. |
The Educated Electorate | The goal of the course “The Educated Electorate” is to teach writing through political participation. |
The Ethical Imagination | Philosophical and creative readings focus on the imagination’s role in determining global ethics. |
The Graphic Memoir | Graphic memoirs tell true stories of their authors’ lives through a combination of text and image. |
The Graphic Self | Explore the art of self-expression in words & images as we study memoirs created in the comics form. |
The Horror of Hermes | Horror literature and media and its relationship to the occult |
The Korean Wave and Society | This class uses K-Pop and contemporary Korean films to analyze urgent global concerns. |
The Language of Identity | We explore how language shapes our identities by writing about culture, race, gender, and class |
The Modern Fairy Tale | The influence of traditional fairy tale motifs on modern literature, art, and film. |
The Oldest Story Ever Told | We study and “update” the Epic of Gilgamesh in relation to themes of anxiety, power, and finding meaning. |
The Power of Categories | In this course, we explore the role of categories in language and cognition. |
The Revolution Will Be Iambic | We explore the intersection of poetry and social justice movements. |
The TV Family | We examine how the American TV family has evolved alongside gender, sexuality, race, and class. |
The World of Higher Learning | Exploration of higher education cross-culturally and through time, focusing on self and community. |
These Films Are So Gay | We investigate coded homosexuality in cinema history. |
To Be Black in the West | We explore African diasporic identities in Western cultures through literature, film, and new media |
Transformative Visual Media | From the printing press to social media reels, we explore how innovative tech disrupts mass media. |
Translation and Adaptation | We explore the translation or adaptation of diverse sources into other languages or genres. |
Translation and Adaptation | We explore the translation or adaptation of diverse sources into other languages or genres. |
Tutoring College Writing | We learn practical skills to support students from diverse backgrounds in writing consultations. |
Twenty-First Century Terrors | Write about how contemporary horror films explore societal fears in America and around the world. |
Women Poets Now | We study diverse women poets, write creatively and critically, and create a class poetry journal. |
Women Writing the Great War | We read women’s writing of WWI and explore how the war shifted attitudes about gender and society. |
Wordless Texts | This class explores wordless picturebooks as works of art and reflections of childhood. |
Writing in the Disciplines | We debunk the myths of discipline-specific writing and explore how effective writing is achieved. |
Writing Irish Identities | Encompassing 19th–21st-Century Irish narratives in literature and film. |
Writing on Design | We explore the connection between interior design and our emotional, physical and mental health. |
Writing Race & the Environment | We explore how texts we read & write can explain & confront environmental racism & global heating. |
Writing the University | We study the way the university works in popular culture and fiction. |
Writing with a Sense of Taste | Through research, writing, and thought-provoking tastings, this class takes you on a culinary journey. |
Wrong Thinking: The Sources and Consequences of Error. |
Note that course topics that end in “Now” are part of our Boston Now initiative, which involves experiential learning and outside-the-classroom fieldwork.