Read “Wonder Woman: A Poor Representation of Feminism”.

Li Yuxuan wrote “Wonder Woman: A Poor Representation of Feminism” for Writing as Inquiry I. The assignment asked students to produce a research-based, argument-driven essay on a topic that points to a practical or research problem important to a larger audience. While situating their own arguments on the controversial topic within an ongoing conversation, students were also expected to consider alternate and opposing positions, create strong exigency for their own positions, offer in-depth analysis, employ the pillars of argument, and adeptly accommodate the essay to the values, interests, and previous knowledge of the intended audience and academic writing conventions.

Yuxuan clearly problematizes popular and critical interpretations of the 2017 film Wonder Woman as a positive contemporary American feminist representation. She considers the viewpoints film directors Patty Jenkins and James Cameron have made about the film’s relation to American feminism, and she resorts to film critics like Laura Mulvey and Zoe Williams to enrich the conversation. Yuxuan successfully utilizes that debate to articulate, and transition, the conversation to her significant research question: “In what way is the film Wonder Woman representative, or not, of contemporary American feminism?” To answer this question, Yuxuan examines the body image of the heroine, traces the source of her superpowers in the film versus the original comics, and finally compares how racially different Wonder Woman is from other contemporary female superheroines. The film, she concludes, falls short from actually challenging the status quo on three fronts: Wonder Woman reproduces a sexualized female body, chooses a privileged white woman to play Wonder Woman, and endows her with superpowers rooted in male power. Yuxuan’s essay makes clear and sound claims and employs compelling evidence. It is well-researched, and its prose is clean and eloquent. It is an excellent model of a short, research-based essay in Writing as Inquiry I. I commend Yuxuan on this achievement. 

—Adam Yaghi, Lecturer in the Writing Program

Read “Science as a Social Construction”.

For her final research paper in my fall 2018 Perspectives on the Humanities course, Wang Xinyu explored a long-running debate from the philosophy of science. Xinyu’s paper makes a seemingly arcane academic debate come to life. Her essay critiques Karl Popper’s theories by juxtaposing them with the work of other scholars. Throughout the paper, Xinyu examines the assumptions within a number of texts, exposing logical flaws while also finding resonances and connections among the work of theorists such as Bruno Latour and Trevor Pinch. I especially admire Xinyu’s ability to compare and contrast sources through well-chosen and seamlessly integrated quotations. Although the paper foregrounds other scholars’ ideas, Xinyu’s clear and forceful prose ensures that her own interpretation is never lost. The last section of the paper underscores the broader implications of the argument, showing how abstract philosophical questions might shape our understanding of pressing problems, such as climate change. 

—Joseph Giacomelli, Lecturer in the Writing Program

Read “Internet: The Machinery of Global Division”.

Ryan Hoover’s essay, which questions the inclusive and equalizing power of the Internet, comes out of the first-year-writing seminar, Writing as Inquiry, which I taught during an exchange semester in Shanghai last spring. For this research-based essay, called “The Present is the Future,” we began our work by reading and discussing Donna Haraway’s strange and conceptually rich “Cyborg Manifesto.” Though it seemed impenetrable, Ryan’s work here is exemplary of finding ways to apply Haraway’s 1985 text without rejecting her or deifying her (as many have) but by applying her thinking to our shifting present-future circumstances. Ryan’s essay uses a dynamic and specific array of evidence to create a vital conversation about the unforeseen biases of Internet algorithms and where humans might intervene as he makes a resounding case for “the reimagining of societal relationships and organizations.”

—Amira Pierce, Senior Language Lecturer, NYU New York