Short Talk and Film Schedule for Spring 2005: Advanced Composition in the Natural Sciences and Technology

Includes Revised Essay Due Dates

On Feynman, SYJ & WDYC and Sacks, Best Science Writing 2003:

Week 2: Thurs, Feb 2nd

• The class will watch Ralph Leighton's The Last Journey of a Genius.

Week 3: Tues/Thurs, Feb 8th/10th

• Tues, 2/8: Short Talk 1: RFeynman, boy and young man: The Qualities that Make up the Good Scientist (SYJ, Parts 1 & 2, WDYC, Chapter 1): Juan Rodriguez/Ghazee Miakhel
  
• Tues, 2/8: Short talk 2: RFeynman's criticisms of abuses of authority particularly at Los Alamos (i.e., his stories about counterproductive uses of secrecy), but you may include stories exemplifying this theme from elsewhere in the book thus far (so from SYJ, Parts 2 & 3, especially "Los Alamos from Below" and "Safecracker Meets Safecracker"): Jyoti Bhatia (?)/__________________________
  
• Thurs, 2/10: Short Talk 3: RFeynman's ideas on what is real scientific learning: what ought to go on in a classroom, be in a book &c (e.g.,"O Americano Outre Vez" and "Judging Books by Their Covers" in SYJ and relevant Letters in WDYC): Ashley Frank/_______________________
  

Week 4: Tues/Thurs, Feb 15th/17th

• Tues, 2/15: Short Talk 4: RFeynman's Adventures in Areas Outside Physics: Biology, Psychology, Art, Music and Anthropology ("A Map of the Cat", Always Trying to Escape", "But Is It Art?"; "O Americano Outra Vez!," "Bringing Culture to the Physicists", "Found Out in Paris", "Altered States" in SYJ, and "It's as Simple as One, Two, Three " and relevant "Letters" in WDYC): Jyoti Bhatia (?)/Galit Brand
  
• Tues, 2/15: Short Talk 5: Exploitation and Casualties in Science (From Best Science Writing Brendon I. Koerner's "Disorders Made to Order," pp. 194-203, Joseph D'Agnese's "An Embarrassment of Chimpanzees", pp. 204-212): Miheer Khona/Shannon Bryce
  
• Thurs, 2/17: Short Talk 6: Phony Science and Science with Integrity (from Best Science Writing Leonard Cassuto's "Big Trouble in the World of 'Big Physics," pp. 228-37, and Richard C. Lewontin and Richard Levins's "Stephen Jay Gould: What Does It Mean to be a Radical?," pp. 237-249): Miheer Khona and Ali Kazemi/Matt Huber
  

Week 5: Tues/Thurs, Feb 22nd/24th

• Tues, 2/22: Short Talk 7: Mr Feynman Goes to Washington: Why some NASA officials are driven to delude themselves and mislead the public ("Mr Feynman Goes to Washington" and "Appendix F" in WDYC): DJ Kim/Duy Huynh
  
• Tues, 2/22: Short Talk 8: A World of Pseudo- and Corrupt Science and the Value of Science (Feynman's "Cargo Cult Learning" and "The Value of Science"): Keltoum Hoback/Arati Singh
  
• Thurs, 2/24: The class watches Peter Jones and David R. Axelrod's Lost at Sea: The Search for Longitude.

On Olson Mapping Human History: Genes, Race and Our Common Origins and Sacks, Best Science Writing 2003

Week 7: Tues/Thurs, Mar 8th/10th

• Tues, 3/8: Short Talk 9: Olson: "The End of Evolution" and "Individuals and Groups" (pp. 11-53): Denise Cole/Hla Oo
  
• Tues, 3/8: Short Talk 10: Olson: "The African Diaspora" and "Encounters with the Other" (pp. 53-89): Cam Duong/Marina Lipscomb
  
• Thurs, 3/10: Short Talk 11: Olson: "Agriculture, Civilization and the Emergence of Ethnicity" and "The Great Migration" (pp. 90-105, 124-36): Katherine Evans/Halston Womack
  
• Thurs, 3/10: The class watches most of In Search of a First Language.

Week 8: Tues/Thurs, Mar 22nd/24th

• Tues, 3/22: The class finishes watching In Search of a First Language
• Tues, 3/22: Short Talk 12: "Creatures and Their Earth" (from Best Science Writing Peter Canby, "The Forest Primeval" (pp. 1-26) and Michelle Nijhuis, "Shadow Creatures" (pp. 23-31): Sara Bekri & Sunaina Bhatnagar/Trevor (Sze-Chit) Kong
  
• Thurs, 3/24: Short Talk 13: Nature and Capitalism (from Best Science Writing Trevor Corson, "Stalking the American Lobster," pp. 138-159 and Lawrence Osborne's "Got Silk," pp. 186-93): Jyoti Bhatia/Jason Obryhim
  
• Thurs, 3/24: Short Talk 14: "Who are the Europeans" and "The Settlement of the Americas" (pp. 158-74, 194-207): Julian Radford/____________________________
  

Week 9: Tues/Thurs, Mar 29th/31st

• Tues, 3/29: The class may watch a brief excerpt from David Attenborough's Life on Earth.
• Thurs, 3/31: The class watches as much of Wit as time permits.

On Ofri, Singular Intimacies and Sacks, Best Science Writing 2003

Week 10: Tues/Thurs, Apr 5th/7th

• Tues, 4/5: The class finishes Wit.
• Tues, 4/5: Short Talk 15: What is the Doctor's Responsibility to the Patient? (from Sacks's Best Science Writing Atul Gawande, "The Learning Curve," pp. 49-67 and Danielle Ofri, "Common Ground," pp. 213-222): Ali Kazemi/Lloyd Pondeca
  
• Thurs, 4/7: Short Talk 16: The Politics of Finding New Information (from Best Science Writing, Charles C. Mann's "1491" and from Olson's MHH, "The Burden of Knowledge" (Ch 12, pp. 208-20): Angela Brown/Sevcan Soysalan
  
• Thurs, 4/7: Short Talk 17: The Reality of Patients as opposed to Idealized Accounts" (SI, Prologue, Chs 1-2, "Possessing Her Words" through "AA Battery", pp. 1-32): Hanadi Hamadi/Hussien Mohamed
  

Week 11: Tues/Thurs, Apr 12th/14th

• Tues, 4/12: ESSAY #2 IS DUE Short Talk 18: The Abuse of Vivien Bearing (from Wit, screenplay and film): Kim Hohenadel/Melissa Oxendine
  
• Thurs, 4/14: Short Talk 19: Doctor and Patient Interactions (Ofri, Chs 3-5, "Stuck," "Change of Heart," "July 1st," pp. 33-88): Jessica Field/Faranak Taheri
  
• Thurs, 4/14: Short Talk 20: When Knowledge Doesn't Help (Ofri, Chs 6-7, "The Professor of Denial" and "The Burden of Knowledge," pp. 89-112): Sunaina Bhatnagar/Paul Villacreces
  

Week 12: Tues/Thurs, Apr 19th/21st

• Tues, 4/19: Short Talk 21: The Difficulty of Judgement (from Best Science Writing Liza Mundy, "A World of Their Own," pp. 68-87, and from Orfi's Singular Intimacies, Chs 8 & 10, "In Charge" and "Immunities", pp. 113-28, 138-60): Ciria Martinez/Joseph Awadalla
  
• Thurs, 4/21: Short Talk 22: Death: Definitions and When It Should Be Permitted (from Best Science Writing, Floyd Skloot, "The Melody Lingers On," pp. 88-95, Ofri, Singular Intimacies, Chs 9 & 11, "Time of Death, 3:27 am," "Finding the Person," pp. 130-37, 161-72): Anzie Lahham/Cory Donohue
  

Week 13: Tues/Thurs, Apr 26th/28th

• Tues, 4/26: PLAN FOR #3 IS DUE. Short Talk 23: When Doctors Make Mistakes (Orfi's Singular Intimacies, Chs 13-14, "M&M" and "Intensive Care," pp. 188-221): Hanan Edrees/Thai Nguyen
  
• Thurs, 4/28: Short Talk 24: Theories or Cranks: It Matters (Ofri's Singular Intimacies, "Merced," Ch 15, pp. 222-23; from Sacks's Best Science Writing, Ronald Hoffman's "Why Buy That Theory," Jennifer Kahn's "Notes from a Parallel Universe" and Margaret Wetheim's "Here Be Dragons," pp. 222-227, 115-122, 11-114): Luis Sosa/Lloyd Pondeca
  

Week 14: Tues/Thurs, May 3rd/5th

• Tues, 5/3: Short Talk 25: Nature's Beauty and Strangeness: (from Best Science Writing. Michael Klesius, "The Big Bloom," pp. 168-75, Susan Milius, "Why Turn Red?", pp. 176-81, Thomas Eisner, "The Mosquito's Buzz", pp. 182-84): Sara Bekri/__________________________
  
• Tues, 5/5: Short Talk 26: Musical Physics, Evolution, and Beyond: (from Best Science Writing, Frank Wilcczek, "The World's Numerical Recipe," pp. 96-101, Marcelo Gleiser, "Emergent Realities in the Cosmos," pp. 102-5, Natalie Angier, "Scientists Reach Out to Distant Worlds," pp. 106-10): Hicham Chenini/________________________