Research in the Disciplines is a Core Curriculum certified course that allows students to earn credit for the WcR or WcD requirement in Writing and Communication. We offer topics across most disciplinary fields at the university, so students can hone the skills of writing and revision through inquiry relevant to their major or interest. Many of our topics are interdisciplinary, and all engage with important and interesting questions for research.
Students in Research in the Disciplines select their own research topic, and work to advance the conversation about it from a critical and analytical point of view. They learn the process of searching for books, journal articles, and Internet sources; develop strategies for managing notes and citations; extend their synthetic and analytical skills; respond to instructor and peer feedback; and become able to differentiate between and assess scholarly, credible, and non-credible sources.
Coordinator:
SAS Students: 201 is Core certified to meet either the Revision-Based (WCr) or the Discipline-Based (WCd) Writing & Communication goals. The course may be taken to fulfill either of these requirements, but not both.
SEBS Students: 201 meets Core Curriculum Requirements in Area VI: Oral and Written Communication
Other Students: 201 meets requirements for most schools at RU. Please check with your advisor.
Transfer Students: If you did not take Expository Writing at RU, you may wish to register for 301: College Writing and Research, which is designed specifically for transfer students and meets all the same core requirements as 201. Information on 301 may be found here: https://wp.rutgers.edu/courses/146-301
201 Topics Fall 2025
Consult your Course Schedule Planner for specific times and locations.
Authenticity and Art
Authenticity is the coin of the realm in the arts—but what does that really mean? In this research writing course, students will explore the complexities of authenticity in artistic expression while developing essential research and analytical writing skills. From Renaissance painters borrowing techniques to hip-hop artists sampling beats, the boundaries of originality and influence have always been blurred. In today’s digital world, AI-generated deepfakes and machine-made art challenge traditional notions of authorship and artistic identity.
Through critical readings, discussions, and independent research, students will examine historical and contemporary debates surrounding authenticity in literature, music, dance, and visual arts. They will analyze how artists borrow, transform, and remix ideas while considering ethical and philosophical questions about creativity and ownership. Assignments will emphasize argument-driven writing, source evaluation, and effective integration of research into academic essays.
This course is designed for students eager to refine their research skills while engaging in meaningful discussions about the evolving nature of artistic truth. No prior expertise in art or music is required—just a curiosity about how we define originality in an age of endless reproduction.
Booktok Goes to College
Young people, it is often said, don't read. A recent article claimed that even students at elite colleges cannot make their way through an entire book—not even a novel! And yet there are corners of social media in which predominantly young people have made reading a kind of lifestyle choice. BookTok, Bookstagram, and BookTube are responsible for the runaway successes of many bestselling authors. From Colleen Hoover to Sarah J. Maas to works of contemporary literary fiction, these social media-driven publishing phenomena appear online and in bookstores in sections with labels like "BookTok Sensations." To this we can add the success of forms like manga. So the kids, it would seem, are reading—or some of them, at least, are reading something. But what effect does this kind of reading have on the kinds of critical and aesthetic judgment college humanities courses strive to teach? Is all reading equal? Is the old saw, "at least they're reading," valid, or is it rather the case that with friends like Hoover and Maas, literature doesn't need enemies? In this course, we will take a multimedia approach to the internet cult of reading's apologists, critics, influencers, and haters, and we will try to figure out what role book-reading plays in the lives of digital natives, what role it should play, and how we can tell the difference, if one exists. What is more, we will ask whether powerful commercial interests are driving young consumers to participate in a kind of monocultural conformity to a few staple texts and tropes, or whether the power of the internet has had the liberating effect of creating diverse communities of reading. Central to the whole business will be questions of culture, taste, and aesthetics in an attention-deficient age.
Creativity
Exploring creativity! Where does it come from—the cosmos, the muses, our DNA? Do creative people think outside the “box?” What is the “box?” How do we break through to our innate originality and live it rather than conceal it in order to fit in? Are imagination, innovation, and
inspiration the exclusive domain of the arts and sciences, or essential components for enriching our lives as well as our diverse profession? Those are some of the issues we’ll investigate. Research topics to consider include: creative ability and autism; effects of drugs on creative output; advertising and creative persuasion; the dark side and curse of creativity; left-handedness; the use of the Golden Mean—the mysterious number employed to establish order and beauty in art. Ultimately, you are free to follow your inspiration to discover other related topics.
Expression and Performance
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." These lines written by William Shakespeare convey that our lives are no more than a brief appearance in a much larger drama, that of human history. But what do we make of our brief performance here on earth? We often think of performance and expression as something done only on a stage or for a camera and yet the definition of performance can simply be the action of carrying out a task. In our daily lives we are subjected to performance reviews and performance anxiety, we evaluate and report on the performance of our vehicles, our teachers, our cosmetics. In our ever more public lives online, performance and expression are not merely for the arts and artists; everyone from politicians to marketers to moms are building brands and enacting performative media every day. We will study music and musical performance and expression, but in this process-based writing course, students may engage in questions such as: What makes something a performance? How do we judge performance? How do we define and examine authenticity? Who gets an audience? Why are some forms of expression valued more highly than others? How do we define our “true-selves?” In what ways will AI and technology change expression and performance in our world? How can performance and expression be weaponized or, alternatively, used for good? Why is it that we are still drawn to certain “classical” performances or forms of expression, say, the work of Shakespeare?
Everyday Stories We Tell
How do we use stories? This topic has become more urgent in the current moment of divide and inflamed “news.” Is a story a personal narrative? A form of testimony? A fiction to entertain? To deceive? A meta-fiction used to designate social group or status? A national identity? We will consider how “stories” have been used by writers and produces as ways of making sense of their world and their “selves.” We will focus examination at the start on how the role of “everyday” routines, habits, ideas, and images become the basis for claims about collective identities, dreams, values, policies, and historical events. You will develop independent research projects that in some way intersects with this topic. Questions that you might consider in this process: How are stories used to build arguments (scholarly, political, in social media)? What kinds of information do they provide? Is that information reliable? Do they conserve, archive, illustrate, or invent information? Do they present scientific data? Do they contribute to religious practices and help elucidate faith? Do they persuade readers to believe an idea that is otherwise too abstract, or too dull, to grasp? Do they put a human face on more mechanical forms of data? Do they unite people into forms of communities? Or do they cause divisions and tribal battles?
Fashion and Style
From Coco Chanel and classic design to Supreme and aggressive “branding”; from “Get Ready With Me” videos to the most carefully gatekept of subcultural spaces; from the meaning of a diamond engagement ring to the niceties of body-modification culture. Whatever the subject matter, when we speak of “fashion” and “style,” we invoke forms of communication and culture with rules, values, and prohibitions worth exploring. And, of course, fashion, style, and their intersection are the beginning of our space of inquiry, but not the end. Students might explore topics treating fashion as historical phenomenon; as design art; as sociological practice; as self-expressive medium; or as industry. They might investigate manifestations of fashion, such as the department store and its demise; the rise (and rise) of the global online shop; or the cultural salience of thrifting. They may approach the topic space through any of the innumerable lenses one might apply: gender politics, racial identity, economics, and so on. Or they may venture elsewhere entirely, exploring the centrality of style in culture and media beyond fashion.
Film and Modernity
E.T. The dance of death at sunset. Gangsters, hangovers, and martial arts. A slumdog millionaire. Perhaps no other art form in the last century has left an impact on culture the way that film has. Through the images on screen, audiences engage in their hopes and fears, find their heroes, and confront their demons. Hollywood, Bollywood, the indie, the foreign film, documentaries and animation--the categories that fall under the art form have left a lasting legacy on our imaginations. This course will explore the nature of film as an art form and look at its power to inspire and enchant. Students may write about the lasting influence of a particular film, a director, or the significance of a genre.
The Horror Genre: From Poe to Craven
Why is the horror genre so popular? Why do we like to be scared? How has horror become such a celebrated form of entertainment? How do horror media and literature absorb and exploit our anxieties? In this course, we will look at the horror genre from the 19th century to today across different platforms from cultural, literary, and sociological perspectives. Follow your inspiration and explore your fears as you research and develop your own research project.
Law & Culture
We sometimes think of the law and legal language as occupying its own specialized domain – law offices, courtrooms, or halls of government. In this course we will explore legal documents, like Supreme Court cases and the US Constitution, to look for the ways they represent and impact daily life. This means reading the law alongside acts of cultural expression: works of art, film, music, and protest. Our focus will be on the legal and cultural meanings of moving freely through public space in the U.S. – as well as on the protest movements in American history that have demanded freedom. We will read widely about “freedom movements,” and you will be encouraged to explore your own interests by researching deeply into a particular moment in history, a particular legal or cultural document, or a particular movement.
Lost in Translation: Culture, Community and AI
How does language influence our perception of the world? Can we consider language as the most powerful/ greatest human creation? To what extent are AI language models (like ChatGPT) an extension of this creation? Do we shape our language or does our language shape us? This section invites students to explore questions and concepts that relate to any facet of language, including multilingualism and identity, language acquisition, dialect, linguistic justice, disappearing and revived languages, the influence of digital communication, the ethical and philosophical implications of AI Language Models and AI-driven translation and much more. Throughout history, language has reflected humanity’s diversity and played a fundamental role in shaping communities. As AI-generated language becomes increasingly prevalent, how might the nature of human communication evolve? Are we among the last generations to experience languages as we know them today
Nutrition and Exercise Science
This course gives students an opportunity to research nutrition and exercise strategies for optimal wellness from a humanities perspective. Research options include topics such as training techniques; sports pedagogy; training and diet for athletes; diet and/or exercise as treatment for or prevention of disease; nutrition and exercise for pregnant women; childhood obesity; occupational therapy; physical therapy; sports medicine; weight management; eating disorders; food insecurity; etc.
Research and Writing Post Truth
Research seeks independent solutions to problems. And while it needs to engage with shared standards, new solutions have often come from outside "commonplace" assumptions. Recently, the wish to see different sides of a question has become complicated by environments in which there are no longer clear standards of what counts as “truth.” Critical differences have become overlaid with accusations about lying, about ignorance of “facts,” and about attempts to control reaction and understanding in the public sphere. How might we test the lines between revision and lies? Between prophetic efforts to change the future and “fake news”? Is language still a good tool for studying social and scientific issues? Is this a new problem? The class will study whether there are lines between thinking against the grain, challenging conclusions, and reinventing or manipulating. We will consider how motivation and purpose can change what a writer counts as “fact,” “story,” “lie,” and how those choices shape the reliability and effectivity of arguments and stories for audiences.
Science Fiction
This course invites you to examine a multitude of speculative worlds created by diverse minds within the genre of science fiction. Taking this genre's promise to alienate us from our world to be able to cognize it with pleasure, as Darko Suvin suggests, we will explore today's questions with the guidance from our imagination of diverse tomorrows. The topics that we will explore will include colonization and decolonization, separation of the human from other species and cyborgs, novel and shifting tales of worldmaking, and ecocritical thought. Paying attention to the language, form, and the rules of the medium that we are offered to reside in, be it a novel or a film, we will explore the limits of different technologies and universes. In addition to asking
questions pertaining to science, technology, cyborgs, you are also invited to explore anthropocentric thought and its limits, ecocritical approaches to worldmaking, cybernetics, AI, racial futures, ethics and politics of science fiction.
Science & Spectacl
What distinguishes the expert from the anti-intellectual, the skeptic from the optimist? Science and Spectacle investigates the intersection of advanced empirical activity and popular discourse. Broad contours of research projects include – Are nurses and physicians accurately depicted on television? Do comic books (and movies) do justice to quantum physics? Do politics, ideology, conspiracies, and other forms of magical thinking trump public health concerns? How does technology impact music creation and appreciation? Why has science fiction become “respectable”? What, empirically speaking, is “the good life”? Is STEM education underfunded? What is the evolutionary purpose of dreams, poetry, sports, celebrity?
Science, Medicine, and Society
“Science, Medicine and Society” focuses on ethical, social, and political controversies in a variety of medical and health fields. Research topics include biomedical engineering, nursing, pharmaceutical and insurance industries, health care, mental illness, alternative and experimental healing techniques, hospice, hospitals, and midwives. Students can also study aspects of medical training and the doctor-patient relationship.
Stress and Mental Health
Are you stressed out? How does stress affect your writing process? How is stress created, defined, and experienced? Using psychological and sociological lenses, students will examine the way we use and manage stress. Through independent research, students investigate a contemporary issue in the field of Psychology or Sociology.
Technology
Technology sells the promise of doing more and more for us: one million apps and counting, drugs for all problems, TV on demand, self-driving cars, 3D printing, Internet in your glasses. Yet side-by-side with state of the art tech, we find mounting chaos: government gridlock; epidemic obesity; environmental degradation; privacy invasions; economic stagnation; debt crises, etc. This course offers students the opportunity to read and analyze research that may help connect the dots between the promise and the chaos, to step backstage and ask: Does technical progress really equal human progress? Or is the rising technical order at the expense of human/environmental chaos? Or both?
The Future is Now: Technology and Creativity
“The Future is now!” A phrase that has been used time and time again, but what does it mean to live in the future? We exist now in an age of high-speed travel, virtual reality, robotic surgery, xenotransplants, remote drone strikes, and AI produced images and texts. Hollywood and dystopian authors alike have produced countless visions of the future, the technology that exists, the dangers of it and even its destruction. What can past interpretations of the future tell us about our wildest
dreams? About our fears? The future is both our greatest hope and often a very real source of anxiety. Technology is a necessary part of progress but when does technology go too far? Creative technological solutions offer a world of possibilities in the fields of medicine, environmental protection, communication, and travel, but also in war, weaponry, and political propaganda.
In this process-based writing course students will be encouraged to examine ideas like futurism, techno-futurism, dystopian futures, futuristic idealism, technological advancement, technological ethics, AI ethics and creativity, and the limitations of technology to solve problems. Students may also wish to look at the ways futuristic thinking can affect mental health, creativity, or conflict.
True Crime
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song. Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. All are masterful works of true crime– a genre capable of riveting its audience like no other. Across film, literature, and TV, true crime is the fastest-growing genre of the 21st century, with the podcast Serial breaking iTunes records in 2014 and has since been downloaded nearly 400 million times. True crime resides in a gripping and controversial league of its own– credited with training law school students in forensics, marshalling tens of thousands of amateur Reddit sleuths, and leading to the arrests of cold-case perpetrators. It is also criticized for sensationalism, one-sided narratives, and re-traumatizing victims and their families. How does true crime draw us into its storytelling vortex to evoke fear, compassion, empathy, outrage, incomprehension and even understanding? What are the ethical, social, legal, and psychological implications of true crime film, TV, podcasts, and books– both for audiences and the individuals they feature? Can a true crime documentary really teach us about sociopathy, forensics, and the dark corridors of the human mind? Can the genre yield something aesthetically “beautiful”– a work of art? Where is the line between documentary and the speculative conjecture of docu-fiction? In this course, students may explore any aspect of the true crime genre including specific cases, portrayals, and controversies, as well as the psychosocial, ethical, cultural, and philosophical questions that arise from these investigations.
