This is a writing intensive course designed to help students learn different genres for the public communication of ideas. We will spend the first three weeks of the course helping each student develop an argument related to the Anthropocene (climate change, mining, waste, fossil fuels, finance, government in/activity etc.). Once each student has a topic they care deeply about and has developed an argument about this topic the rest of the course will involve learning to write or express that argument in very different ways (genres) from the policy brief to the short essay, from a video abstract to work of fiction. Students should be willing to experiment with how scientifically strong arguments can be made and the relationship between genre, audience, and impact. Collective work will be encouraged. Following students interest course work can be refined into a publication. Options include a screenplay, or special issue of Æther -- an example of which can be found here: https://aether.ethz.ch/ausgabe/montan-welten/
Teaching will be in English, writing can be done in German, English, or French.
- Course owner: Gretchen Bakke