Options for teaching science writing in humanities courses
Science writing is an expansive genre that invites collaborations between the humanities and science—not as separate endeavors but as mutually constitutive practices. Engaging with long-standing scholarly conversations in science and technology studies, literature and science, rhetoric, and science communication, the essays in this volume showcase the value of science writing as a mode of cultural analysis, as an object of close reading, and as a foundation for justice-oriented pedagogies. Readers will find practical strategies for teaching science writing in literature, writing, and interdisciplinary classrooms, from general education courses to electives to graduate courses.
This volume also contains discussion of the following authors and works: Adelard of Bath, Quaestiones naturales (Natural Questions); Albertus Magnus, On Animals; Amy Matilda Cassey; Geoffrey Chaucer, Parliament of Fowls; Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Charles Darwin; Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity; Emily Dickinson; Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide; Ibn al-Nafis, Theologus Autodidactus (Self-Taught Theologian); Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass; Jamaica Kincaid, My Garden (Book); Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Bruno Latour; Marie de France, ""Bisclavret"" (""The Werewolf""); Aimee Nezhukumatathil, World of Wonders; Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society; Britt Rusert, Fugitive Science; C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures; Bram Stoker, Dracula; Émile Zola, L'Assommoir.
Edited by:
Allison Dushane,
Lisa Ottum,
Rosalind Powell
Imprint: Modern Language Association of America
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781603297165
ISBN 10: 1603297162
Series: Options for Teaching
Pages: 294
Publication Date: 31 March 2026
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction: Science Literacy and Science Writing: A Call to Humanists, by Allison Dushane, Lisa Ottum, and Rosalind Powell Part I: Historical Science Writing Before Objectivity: Pluralizing Science with Premodern Knowledge, by Aylin Malcolm Epistolary Science: The Early Philosophical Transactions, by Rosalind Powell Less Than Nothing in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: Literature, Mathematics, Realism, and Anti-Realism, by Aaron Ottinger The Vampire We Need: Bram Stoker's Dracula and the Victorian Science of the Mind, by Melissa Dickson Botany in the American Literature Classroom: Emily Dickinson and Amy Matilda Cassey, by Julia Dauer Experiments with the Science of Alcoholism, by Susanna Lee Part II: General Education and Writing Courses Digital Science Communication in Rhetoric and Writing Courses, by Laura McGrath Science, Stories, and Academic Ecology, by Marissa Kopp Environmental Science Communication as Storytelling, by Luke Rodewald Embracing Subjectivity: Humanizing and Historicizing Science Writing in the Post-Pandemic Classroom, by Scott C. Thompson Science Writing as a General Education Linchpin, by Matthew Newcomb Part III: Science Writing for Change Anti-Racist Science Writing: Environmental Justice and Energy Futures in the Interdisciplinary Humanities Classroom, by Davy Knittle, Annesha Manocha, and Arielle Rivera Women's Historical Ecomedia and Environmental Advocacy, by Bridgitte Barclay Jamaica Kincaid's Anti-Colonial, Black, Cross-Species, Embodied, Feminist Onto-Epistemologies, by Nicole M. Merola Multispecies Relationships: Nonhumans and Knowledge Production in Science Writing, by Nathaniel Otjen Part IV: Courses and Assignments The Critic Afield: Field Guides as Tools for Interdisciplinary Close Reading, by John MacNeill Miller Teaching the Invisible: Science, Labor, and Pedagogy, by Xan Sarah Chacko Teaching with the Hive: Beekeeping as a Scientific and Creative Practice, by James Barilla Sex, Gender, and the Short Story, by Nancy Easterlin Science Writing and the Art of Interpretation, by Joshua DiCaglio Taming a Two-Headed Beast: Integrating Science, Literature, and the Living World, by Bryan Shawn Wang and Sandy Feinstein Part V: Resources Notes on Contributors
