The Literature of Science

4 Credits.

In this reading elective, students analyze books, magazine articles, and newspaper series to discover how the best science, medical, nature, and environmental writers create compelling, entertaining, factual literature. Craft topics include structure, pace, sources, content, explanatory writing, and clear, lyrical language. Assignments may include brief reviews and a team presentation of an assigned book. Featured authors vary from one semester to the next; past courses have read works by Atul Gawande, Rachel Carson, Sushma Subramanian, Daniel Duane, Lauren Redniss, Emma Marris, Michael Pollan, John McPhee, and Elizabeth Kolbert, among others.