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Course: WRDS 150.513 Instructor: Sang Wu Office Hours:

Time: MW 6-9pm Email: sang.wu@ubc.ca F 4-6pm & by appt

WRDS 150 – The Anthropocene

Course Description

This course will introduce you to the knowledge-making practices of scholarly communities,
such as particular academic disciplines and research fields. You will begin to participate in
scholarly conversations within those communities by performing the actions of apprentice
academic researchers, scholarly communicators, and peer-reviewers. You will also produce work
in several scholarly genres and familiarize yourself with the conventions of communication of
specific academic disciplines. In doing so, you will begin to develop your own scholarly identity
as a member of academic research communities.

We will begin by focusing our investigation on climate change and other global crises, and issues
of responsibility concerning them, in the epoch of the Anthropocene. Coined at the turn of the
21st century, the word is compounded from the Greek anthropos (“human”) and kainos (“new”).
The Anthropocene is the new epoch of humans: one in which planetary conditions are shaped by
human activity rather than vice versa, humankind as a force of geological agency has overtaken
physical geography and natural history, and the familiar distinction between man and nature no
longer holds. A closer look at the scientific and semantic implications of the term, however,
reveals it to be less straightforward than initially appears. Currently not officially recognized as
part of the Geologic Time Scale, what should be understood or measured as the basis for the
Anthropocene means different things to different disciplines. How do scholars from fields as
diverse as geology, climatology, sociology, history, anthropology, and psychology, engage with
the common idea of the Anthropocene? Do studies of pre-industrial greenhouse gas emissions,
critiques of environmentally unsustainable trends of industrial, socioeconomic, and technological
acceleration in an age of world capitalism, and theories of the end of human history at the limits
of human “meaning” and modernity, ask similar research questions despite starkly contrastive
methodologies? How are the discursive challenges posed by referring to singular abstractions
(e.g., humans as a “species,” the sense of a “universal” history or geostory, the “Anthropocene”)
represented across multiple disciplines, reflective of the conceptual difficulties which arise in
accessing or preserving a nature no longer distinguishable from the human interventions that
create and destroy it? How is our sense of what it means to be natural objects or human subjects,
and what it means not to be, informed by how our discourses produce meaning?
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Learning Objectives

Working with scholarly sources to read and interpret academic discourse in context
1. You will work with research articles to recognize how the conventions of communication
within academic disciplines, including forms of argumentation and what counts as evidence,
reflect and shape the types of knowledge associated with research cultures in the university.
This will be done by:
a. Reading, summarizing, comparing, and critically evaluating research articles, retaining
the key arguments/findings and emphases of the originals.
b. Recognizing forms of argumentation and identifying the rhetorical moves made by
members of specific academic research disciplines, such as practices of positioning,
definition, attribution, hedging, and presupposition/assertion.
c. Recognizing the goals, methods, and citation practices of specific academic research
disciplines.
Engaging in apprentice scholarly research
2. You will participate as apprentice members of academic research communities by identifying
and tracing the scholarly conversation around a research problem and by developing
questions, collecting evidence, and constructing arguments through ethical and collaborative
practices of scholarship. This will be done by:
a. Developing a research project that addresses a gap in knowledge within a particular
research community, and which implements relevant discursive features and rhetorical
moves in a variety of genres, including a research proposal, a working bibliography, and
a final paper.
b. Gathering relevant and credible primary and secondary sources, using appropriate tools
and methods, including UBC Library resources.
c. Engaging responsibly with and within research communities, using appropriate citation
practices that meet the expectations of academic integrity and adhering to ethical
standards of data collection with research collaborators.
d. Engaging in constructive and collaborative practices of knowledge production, including
performing peer review and integrating feedback.

Required Texts

Academic Writing
Giltrow, J., Gooding, R., Burgoyne, D., Sawatsky, M. (2014). Academic Writing: an introduction
(3rd ed.). Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press.

Digital PDF/ePUB available for download ($35) here:

https://broadviewpress.com/product/academic-writing-an-introduction-third-edition/

The Anthropocene
Chakrabarty, D. (2009). The climate of history: four theses. Critical Inquiry, 35(2), 197-222.
doi:10.1086/596640
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Crutzen, P. J. and Stoermer, E. F. (2000). The “Anthropocene.” IGBP Global Change

Newsletter, 41, 17-18.
Cunsolo, A. and Ellis, N. (2018). Ecological grief as a mental health response to climate change-
related loss. Nature Climate Change, 8, 275-281. doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0092-2
Lewis, S. L. and Maslin, M. A. (2015). Defining the Anthropocene. Nature, 519(7542), 171–180.
doi:10.1038/nature14258
Steffen, W., Persson, A., Deutsch, L., Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Richardson, K., … Svedin,
U. (2011). The Anthropocene: from global change to planetary stewardship. AMBIO: A
Journal of the Human Environment, 40(7), 739-61. doi:10.1007/s13280-011-0185-x
Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, C., Williams, M., Barnosky, A. D., Cearreta, A., Crutzen, P. J., …
Oreskes, N. (2015). When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary
level is stratigraphically optimal. Quaternary Interantional, 383, 196-203.
doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2014.11.045

All articles listed above available (free) on Canvas.

Assignments and Assessments

Group Presentation 15%

Discourse Analysis 15%
Annotated Bibliography 15%
Research Proposal 5%
Research Paper Draft 10%
Research Paper Final 20%
Participation*
Class attendance, discussion posts, quizzes, etc. 10%
Writing exercises 10%

* Participation The participation grade will be assigned based on attendance and contributions
to class sessions, writing exercises, discussion posts, quizzes, peer reviews, and overall
demonstrated engagement with the course material. If you miss a class, it is your responsibility
to watch the session recording, study the slides, and take part the week’s writing exercise and
discussion thread, if applicable, by noon the following day (e.g., a writing exercise assigned on a
Monday will close Tuesday at 12pm).

Participation and Submission Requirements

PARTICIPATION: All readings should be completed before the class for which they are
assigned, and you should have access to Academic Writing and each week’s research article
during the class session unless told otherwise. To succeed in this course, you are expected to
attend class on time prepared to think and talk in a way that demonstrates you’ve engaged with
the course material, contribute regularly to small group discussions, respond constructively to the
work of your peers, and interact respectfully with one another. Behaviors that represent a refusal
to respect and pay attention to others include: chatting or whispering while someone is speaking,
texting or surfing the internet, doing work for another class, sleeping, interrupting or sighing, etc.
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Participation also includes—but is not limited to—taking part in writing exercises and discussion
threads, completing quizzes, making a consistent effort throughout the peer review process, and
doing occasional additional readings.

SUBMISSION: All assignments must be submitted through Canvas. I will not accept
assignments by email. Assignments are by the time indicated on the due date, and they will be
penalized as late if they are not handed in by this time (see “Academic Concession” below).
Assignments uploaded in document or PDF format should be typed in a legible 12pt font and
they should be double-spaced with 1-inch margins and numbered pages. On the front page,
always include the course number, your name, my name, and the date. You should use APA
citation style in accordance with disciplinary conventions.

Assignments submitted late without an extension will lose 5% for each day they are late; this
includes both weekdays and weekends (e.g., an assignment due on a Friday but handed in the
following Monday will lose 15%: 5% for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday). Remember that
assignments must be submitted on Canvas, not through email.

Policies

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: We—me, ASRW, UBC and the scholarly community at large—
share an understanding of the ethical ways that we use to produce knowledge. A core practice of
this shared value of academic integrity is that we acknowledge the contributions of others to our
own work, but it also means we produce our own contributions that add to the scholarly
conversation: we don’t buy or copy papers or exams, or have someone else edit them. We also
don’t falsify data or sources, or hand in the same work in more than one course.

Because it is so important that research be done ethically, I expect WRDS 150 students to meet
these expectations. Any instance of cheating or taking credit for someone else’s work, whether
intentionally or unintentionally, can and often will result in at minimum a grade of zero for the
assignment, and these cases will be reported to the First-Year Programs Chair, and the Faculty of
Arts Associate Dean, Academic. See the UBC Calendar entries on “Academic Honesty”
(http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/Vancouver/index.cfm?tree=3,286,0,0), “Academic Misconduct”
(http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/Vancouver/index.cfm?tree=3,54,111,959), and “Disciplinary
Measures” (http://www.calendar.ubc.http//www.calendar.ubc.ca/Vancouver/index.cfm?tree=
3,54,111,960ca/Vancouver/index.cfm?tree=3,54,111,960), and check out the Student Declaration
and Responsibility (http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/Vancouver/index.cfm?tree=3,285,0,0). See also
“Tips for Avoiding Plagiarism” (http://learningcommons.ubc.ca/resource-guides/avoid-
plagiarism/) from the Chapman Learning Commons, and bookmark the OWL website
(https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/) for how to use APA citation style.

ATTENDANCE: Regular attendance is mandatory in this course (see “Assignments and

Assessments” above). Attendance is a crucial factor in determining a student’s success: since
class activities and course assignments are designed to be cumulative, missing class will impact
your ability to complete subsequent assignments. Further, your involvement in class enhances
the learning process for the whole group, and it demonstrates your awareness of being part of a
scholarly community.
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If a serious situation arises that prevents you from attending class (e.g., conflicting
responsibilities, medical issues, family emergencies), please contact me about it as soon possible.
I also encourage you to contact your faculty’s Academic Advising Office about academic
concession and other resources you can use to help you manage your particular situation.

ACADEMIC CONCESSION: The due dates for all graded assignments are final and are not
subject to negotiation without a valid reason. If you miss a due date for the first time and the
course is still in progress, an extension may be granted if you immediately submit a Student Self-
Declaration (https://students-2016.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2019/09/Student-Self-Declaration-Form-
1.6-Arts.pdf) to me so that your in-term concession case can be evaluated.

If this is not the first time you have requested an extension or classes are over, fill out Arts
Academic Advising’s online academic concession form (https://students.air.arts.ubc.ca/
academic-concession-form/), so that an advisor can evaluate your concession case. If you are a
student in a different Faculty, please consult your Faculty’s webpage on academic concession
(https://students.ubc.ca/enrolment/academic-learning-resources/academic-concessions), and then
contact me where appropriate.

ACCOMMODATIONS: Accommodations will be made for students with disabilities if they

are registered with the Centre for Accessibility. The university also accommodates students
whose religious obligations conflict with attendance, submitting assignments, or completing
scheduled exams. Please let me know as soon as possible if you will require accommodation on
these grounds. Students who plan to be absent because of varsity athletics, family obligations,
performance schedules, or other commitments will not necessarily be accommodated and should
discuss any planned absences with me ahead of time.

EXAM CONFLICTS: If you are taking a course that schedules a common midterm exam
outside of regular class sessions, and that scheduled exam conflicts with WRDS 150, university
policy requires the instructor of the other course to offer a make-up exam or other
accommodation to students who are in a course that conflicts with the midterm, as that course
(i.e, WRDS 150) receives priority and students are expected to attend their regularly scheduled
classes. Students must alert the instructor of the other course by the deadline that instructor has
set in order to be accommodated.

COMMUNICATION: The easiest way to reach me with your questions and concerns is
through the Course Q&A Forum. For issues requiring more individual consideration, please use
email. I make every effort to reply to messages in a timely manner (within 24 hours), but for any
kind of substantive discussion about your work you should attend virtual office hours or make an
appointment to meet with me on Collaborate Ultra. I am available to talk about your writing,
assignments and grades, class readings, or any other issue arising from the course. I will look
over rough drafts, help you brainstorm ideas for an assignment, and go over written feedback.
While I am happy to read through a draft and go over it with you in person, I will not give
feedback over email, nor will I read multiple drafts for a single assignment.
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FINAL GRADES: Once final grades are entered into the SSC, they cannot be changed except
under extraordinary circumstances. Changes must undergo a formal change-of-grade process,
which involves several layers of institutional approval: a form documenting a valid reason for the
change must be submitted by the instructor, verified and signed by the department chair, then
verified and signed again by the assistant dean’s office. Reasons such as “the instructor made an
error in calculating the final grade” or “the student received Standing Deferred from their
faculty’s advising office” are likely to be approved; reasons such as “the student wants a higher
grade in order to qualify for a specific academic program” are not. If you approach me, or one of
your other instructors, to ask for a grade change at the end of term, please make sure you have a
reason that would be acceptable to the university administration.

University Policies

UBC provides resources to support student learning and to maintain healthy lifestyles but
recognizes that sometimes crises arise and so there are additional resources to access including
those for survivors of sexual violence. UBC values respect for the person and ideas of all
members of the academic community. Harassment and discrimination are not tolerated nor is
suppression of academic freedom. UBC provides appropriate accommodation for students with
disabilities and for religious observances. UBC values academic honesty and students are
expected to acknowledge the ideas generated by others and to uphold the highest academic
standards in all of their actions. Details of the policies and how to access support are available on
the UBC Senate website (https://senate.ubc.ca/policies-resources-support-student-success).

UBC Student Resources

UBC Library Research Guides: http://guides.library.ubc.ca/

Academic Support: https://learningcommons.ubc.ca
Academic Integrity: http://learningcommons.ubc.ca/resource-guides/avoiding-plagiarism/
Health and Wellbeing: https://students.ubc.ca/health
Centre for Accessibility: http://students.ubc.ca/about-student-services/centre-for-accessibility
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Course Schedule

Weeks Dates Readings Assignments

1 Mon, May 11 Giltrow, Genre (Ch. 1)
Syllabus
Crutzen and Stoermer
Wed, May 13 Giltrow, Citation and Summary (Ch. 2)
Lewis and Maslin
2 Mon, May 18 Victoria Day. No Class.
Wed, May 20 Giltrow, Summary (Ch. 3: pp. 31-54)
Zalasiewicz
3 Mon, May 25 Giltrow, Summary (Ch. 4: pp. 63-73)
Steffen
Wed, May 27 Giltrow, Introductions (Ch. 8: pp. 159-171; 179-
186)
4 Mon, June 1 Group Presentations

Wed, June 3 Giltrow, Orchestrating Voices (Ch. 6: pp. 109-

131), Definition (Ch. 7: 137-143)
Chakrabarty

5 Mon, June 8 Giltrow, Messages About the Argument (Ch. 11),

Qualifying Expressions (Ch. 13: pp. 269-84)
Cunsolo and Ellis

Wed, June 10 Library Skills Tutorial Discourse Analysis

6 Mon, June 15 Giltrow, “Documentation” (Ch. 8: pp. 171-178), Annotated

“Research Proposals” (Ch. 6: pp. 131-135) Bibliography
“How to Write a Research Proposal”
Wed, June 17 “The Art of Quoting” Paper Proposal
Giltrow, Conclusions (Ch. 14: pp. 293-302) Peer Review
June 22-26 Exam Period. No Exam. Paper Draft
Peer Review
Research Paper