{"id":360,"date":"2023-04-20T09:37:59","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T09:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/thematic-option\/?page_id=360"},"modified":"2026-03-06T13:45:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T21:45:53","slug":"core-112","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/thematic-option\/prospective-students\/core-112\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\n CORE 112: Writing Seminar II\n <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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CORE 112: Writing Seminar II<\/strong> asks students to place contemporary texts in conversation with larger critical concepts or lenses. In particular, students learn to: use the arguments of others to create their own original interpretations of primary texts; conduct effective searches for timely and appropriate scholarly secondary sources; evaluate the sources they find in light of disciplinary conventions and their own argument; write effectively in multiple scholarly genres, including oral presentation; present their original scholarship in an academic community; and draw connections between their course texts\/themes and the world outside the classroom.<\/p>\n

Students are required to take CORE 111: Writing Seminar I in their entering fall term and strongly encouraged to take CORE 112: Writing Seminar II the following spring. This year-long arc of writing instruction helps students maintain momentum between semesters and emerge from their first year at USC with the tools needed to succeed in future academic and professional writing. Both CORE 111 and CORE 112 are augmented with bi-weekly, one-on-one tutorials that provide students with individualized coaching and the opportunity to address their specific strengths and weaknesses, track their growth as writers, and develop their personal voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Sample Course Descriptions<\/h1>\n

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\"Awestruck<\/div>\n

Awestruck and Dreadfully Aware: Encountering the Sublime<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Dr. Krishna Narayanamurti, Thematic Option Honors Program<\/strong><\/p>\n

Have you ever stared at a dark gray ocean or a vast mountain range and felt a rush of delight and terror? You may have experienced \u201cthe sublime.\u201d An aesthetic category stronger (and stranger) than \u201cbeauty,\u201d the sublime points to the grace and power, inconceivable in form or scope, behind<\/em> a captivating object. Traditionally associated with nature\u2014and more recently, technology\u2014this feeling can come from anywhere. Yet, it rarely occurs. You can\u2019t see or prove it through reason alone. You must sense<\/em> it, when intuition overwhelms your perception. For scholar Stephen Zepke, the sublime \u201cexiles you from yourself\u201d and leaves you \u201cpainfully suspended between cosmic awareness and crushing madness.\u201d Writing on the philosophy of art, Zepke joins the mystics, poets, novelists, and painters who have tried for centuries to capture the sublime on paper or on canvas. <\/span><\/p>\n

In this course, we will study texts that attempt, successfully or not, to represent sublime experience. We\u2019ll observe the ways scientific wonder transforms into spiritual reverence in Mary Austin and Annie Dillard\u2019s nature essays and Terrence Malick\u2019s arthouse filmmaking, as they immerse us in rainstorms, solar eclipses, or the formation of the Earth. We\u2019ll consider why and how the graphic novel Gods\u2019 Man<\/em> draws a dreadful awe onto urban and wilderness settings alike. In Zong!<\/em> and The Swimmers<\/em>, experimental texts that blend poetry or fiction with history, we\u2019ll bear witness to the generational trauma and collective consciousness that work through \u201cunseeable\u201d and \u201cunspeakable\u201d social forces and power structures to shape the past and present. The films Oppenheimer<\/em> and The Matrix<\/em> will problematize the human amazement at technological feats like the atomic bomb and artificial intelligence that threaten our survival and our humanity itself. And through 1960s psychedelic rock and avant-garde orchestral music, we\u2019ll sway to the siren songs of dismay and transcendence. To support our close reading and writing, we\u2019ll consult scholarly research in aesthetic philosophy, ecocriticism, and affect theory. Recent work in neuroscience and psychology will help us ask what measurable effects aesthetic experiences like the sublime produce in the brain and body. Be forewarned: in this class, \u201ccosmic awareness and crushing madness\u201d are possible but not guaranteed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Texts<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n