Courses

Directed Research Group (DGR) | INSC 578C: Theoretical and Practice-based Design Inquiry

Nassim Parvin; nassimi@uw.edu
Monthly meetings; first class is Wed., Sept. 30, 2026; 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm, Allen 187, Grand Conference Room

“Join me in this year-long Directed Research Group (DRG) as we turn the sense of unease and uncertainty about AI into a chance to learn about design theory and practice through thinking, making, and writing together. Part reading seminar, part experimental studio, and part creative writing workshop, this course is an invitation to creative and critical practice in the meeting-place of disciplines.

What if this is not the end of reading and writing but rather a moment of revival for the arts and humanities, as we recognize the urgency of not drowning in AI slop? What do we owe each other, and the writers and researchers of the past and present, whose body of work AI is trained on? What if it marks a return to embodied practices of knowing such as oral and dialogic traditions that are the necessary but forgotten arts of civic discourse and “gathering,” to borrow Le Guin’s term from The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction.

These questions guide us in a year-long undisciplined and slow collective inquiry through themes of embodiment and situatedness; experimentation and uncertainty; and epistemic justice and humility. We depart from positivist accounts of information as discrete, stable units of data, turning instead toward in.formation as an ongoing act of sense-making and form-giving—one that unsettles disciplinary boundaries and generates new sites of connection. We will read poetry and prose from scholars across the globe and from disciplines ranging from feminist philosophy to media arts, science and technology studies to sociolinguistics. We consider different disciplines and perspectives as we explore creative parallels and connections, such as bodies of knowledge and human bodies; text, textile, and context; communication and communion. These themes will allow us to build a deep understanding of the meaning and significance of writing, bookmaking, collaging, note-taking, curating, mapping, and yes!: experimenting with AI. Students are encouraged to connect the course to their own research and professional interests and define their own paths and deliverables along the way.

Together, we will explore the joyful, flawed, and flesh-and-blood ways of knowing that are urgent and essential in this age of doom-prompting.”

COM 540: Rhetoric of Science (5 credits)

Leah Ceccarelli; cecc@uw.edu
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30-5:20 pm, CMU 242

This graduate seminar will examine the interdisciplinary field of scholarship known as the “rhetoric of science.” We will study the rhetorical structure of arguments made by scientists to their peers, the rhetorical strategies used by scientists when they communicate outside their fields of expertise, and the persuasive moves made by publics engaging technoscientific issues. Questions for discussion will include: How do scientists use language, situation, culture, and prior tradition to reach intersubjective agreement? How do scientists communicate with the public? What does public discourse about science reveal about our attitudes toward science? What happens when there is a crisis involving science or technology in the public sphere and scientific expertise is unable to resolve doubt and warrant productive action? We will read work in the field to see how rhetorical scholars have added to our collective knowledge about the communicative practices of scientists. We will discuss some of the larger theoretical and practical issues that arise from the rhetorical interpretation of science. And over the course of the quarter, each student will write a paper that engages in the rhetorical criticism of a piece of communication about science. No background in rhetoric or science is necessary to take this course. This seminar can be used by STSS graduate certificate students who are not in the Department of Communication to fulfill the broad perspectives course requirement.

LSJ 460 Science, Technology, and Justice (5 credits)

Sebastian Rubiano-Galvis; srubiano@uw.edu
Days, Time, Location, TBD

Explores the entanglements among science, technology, and contemporary struggles for rights, justice, and democracy through the lenses of science and technology studies (STS) and socio-legal studies. Through lectures, group discussions, and a variety of writing assignments, students will examine how legal institutions and the social movements that engage them intersect with science and technology, tracing the political, social, and epistemic implications of these interactions across modern and postcolonial societies.