WRITING
POLITICS
April 14, 2008
The
Political Science Program has recently added
the Writing Politics specialization to our curriculum.
The Writing Politics specialization will train
students to write serious political analysis
for an educated audience outside of the discipline.
This type of political writing, a form of literary
journalism or creative non-fiction, can be found
in many widely read publications like the New
York Review of Books, Harper's,
DISSENT
Magazine or the New
Yorker, or in books of trade. This
specialization, the first of its kind in the
political science academy, helps political scientists
reach a larger audience and become involved
in the public sphere, where diverse sets of
ideas and views are shared and debated.
This
specialization is composed of three classes:
- Writing
Politics Seminar
- Writing
Politics Workshop
- A
course entitled the Role of the American
Public Intellectual, Topics in European
Intellectual History, or another class that
addresses the role public intellectuals
play in other countries and regions.
Past instructors have included:
Liza Featherstone
A
frequent contributor to The Nation, writing
on topics such as labor and student activism.
Her writing has also appeared in The
New York Times, The
Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Salon.com, as
well as many other newspapers and magazines.
Her latest book, Selling Women Short: The
Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart (Basic Books, 2004 ) examines the widespread
discrimination and sexism targeting female employees
at Wal-Mart stores throughout the nation.
Andrew Hsiao
Andrew Hsiao is the executive editor of the non-profit publishing house The New Press, and was an editor and staff writer with The Village Voice. He’s written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Spin, and other publications, and is the author of a deck of cards, Regime Change Begins at Home. He’s been a labor organizer and a board member of groups including CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities and the Asian American Writers Workshop.
Leonard
Kriegel
Author of Edmund Wilson, Falling
into Life, Flying Solo, Of Men
and Manhood, Roughing It, Stories
of America, and Stories of the American
Experience. Kriegel's essays and stories
have been published in Harper's, The Nation, Best
American Essays, and American
Scholar and he has received many grants
and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship
and an O'Henry Award.
Micah L. Sifry
A senior analyst with
Public Campaign, a non-profit, non-partisan
organization working on comprehensive campaign
finance reform. Prior to joining Public Campaign
in 1997, Sifry was an editor and writer with The Nation
magazine for thirteen years. He is the author
of Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics
in America (Routledge, 2002) and co-edited
The Iraq War Reader (Touchstone, 2003) and The
Gulf War Reader (Times Books, 1991). He has
also published articles and op-eds in The New York Times,
The Los Angeles Times,
The Washington
Post, Newsday, The American
Prospect, The
Hill, Salon.com, TomPaine.com, IntellectualPolitics.com
and many smaller papers and magazines. His latest
book, co-authored with Nancy Watzman, on how
money in politics affects people in their everyday
lives, is titled Is That a Politician in
Your Pocket? (John Wiley & Sons, 2004).
He is a founding member of the CUNY Graduate
Center Independent Politics Group, and a co-founder
of the Personal Democracy Forum.
In
addition, the department offers the Speaker Series,
which gives students further exposure to political
writing.
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