Welcome to the ASP 2022 Summer Bridge Program and, in particular, our University Writing course! I’m Dr. Mani (she/her), pronounced like “money,” and I look forward to working with you this summer and providing resources for you that will help you refine your writing process throughout your college career.
On Land
As we are gathering on the unceded territories known as New York, I would like to acknowledge and honor the Lenni-Lenape people, the original custodians of these lands, and all the other Indigenous peoples who have been or have become part of this region. The U.S. is a nation founded upon genocidal settler colonization and land theft whose legitimacy requires the erasure of its systematic violence. Land acknowledgments alone are not enough, but they help to dispel America’s origin myth, revise our relationships with the stolen lands on which we reside, and honor their original stewards. They also highlight the material actions requested by local Indigenous organizations like The Manna-Hatta Fund, including donating money to Indigenous-led organizations and supporting Indigenous-led grassroots campaigns for environmental protection, the removal of tributes to colonial war criminals, and the return of stolen property, like ceremonial objects and land.
About Me
Hello! I’m a Clinical Assistant Professor at Pace University – Pleasantville and have been teaching in the ASP program since 2014. I’ve been teaching in the fields of Composition and Rhetoric and Media Studies since 2006. I have a Ph.D. in Communication, Media, and Information from Rutgers University, an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from Columbia University, and a B.A. in English with concentrations in Japanese and Anthropology from Dartmouth College. My dissertation, which I’m in the process of revising for a digital book project, is a cybertextual decolonial autoethnography about my experiences negotiating the politics and poetics of fibromyalgia (FMS) and myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)—informally, chronic pain and chronic fatigue—as a queer, disabled, nonwhite woman. Along the way, I’ve studied and written about trolling culture and memes, particularly on sites like Something Awful and 4chan; comics and animation; digital humanities; access and accessibility; and feminist and antiracist pedagogies. I wear my politics on my sleeve, but I am not here to convert you. Rather, my role is to help you better articulate your worldviews by challenging you to think and write more openly and critically about your own beliefs.
As a more personal introduction, I am Eelam Tamil American, Eelam being the north-east regions of Sri Lanka, a country that has been engaged in genocidal acts towards the Tamil people for decades. I have lived with FMS and ME, which come with brain fog and sensory dysfunction, and am high-risk for COVID-19 (so please mask up, test regularly, and socially distance!). I am deathly allergic to cats, so I own a purebred red-and-white Siberian (as hypoallergenic as they come) named Athena who just turned 8. She’s a Cancer, and as for me, most people can accurately guess my astrological sign when they first meet me. As of this writing, I have (I think?) 13 tattoos, 2 scarifications, 1 magnetic implant, and 8 piercings, and like so many people during the pandemic, I have been slowly collecting houseplants even though I am an iffy gardener at best.
I am keenly aware that, as a writing professor, I learn more about you than you do about me. So, in our first class session, we’ll hold a brief “AMA” (ask me anything), in which you can ask me questions about my life, work, career, and interests. (I believe in transparency, but please keep your questions respectful!)
On COVID-19 and Illness in General
The pandemic is not over. In fact, we may be poised on the edge of another wave. Masks are mandatory in the classroom. While I permit eating and drinking, please do so quickly and mask again between bites and sips. Otherwise, masks must be worn over the nose and mouth at all times. We will also socially distance, so group work will be conducted electronically whenever possible. Given my risk factors and mobility issues, I will not circulate the room much. If you need to ask me a question, you may ask if I’m able to come to you/your group, or ask to talk to me at the front of the room (maintaining social distance), and I’ll help you and/or your small group there.
If you are feeling unwell, please be responsible and get tested and report your condition to the ASP office. Regardless of whether or not it’s COVID-19, if you are feeling unwell, stay home. School isn’t worth your health, your classmates’ health, or my health, and there are ways to catch up on the material once you are feeling better. Email me to let me know if you’re going to Health Services or getting R&R for an illness, and we’ll work out alternate deadlines for you.
On Respect
I do not tolerate bigotry or malicious disrespect in person or over electronic communication. I acknowledge that some slurs (ableist slurs in particular) are not commonly acknowledged as harmful, and language is internalized and habitual and can be difficult to unlearn. If you use language that is harmful, I will stop to correct you and/or offer alternatives. Please know that this is not a calling out but a calling in, designed to help you improve your ability to respectfully engage in the public sphere. I ask that if I say something harmful, you call me in as well.
There is no such thing as an apolitical space, as politics touches everything and all of us. This is not a political course, but I expect, especially given very recent changes to the landscape, that political discourse or news events will enter our discussions, and we will give them space if they do. We will not pretend that the world disappears while we are engaged in learning, or that our learning does not serve our engagement in the world.
Finally, if you need to stretch, stand up, move around, or otherwise attend to your bodymind during class, please do so! I will do the same.
On Being a Student at Columbia and U Writing
Welcome to ASP’s University Writing course, and to Columbia. Impostor syndrome is very real, but don’t forget that you belong here, regardless of your background and identity. You belong here if schools and society have minimized, denigrated or shunned you and your community; you belong here if schooling gave you strong and dedicated teachers and empowering experiences. You belong here if you are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, secular, pagan. You belong here if you are white, if you are Black, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, AAPI (Asian American/Pacific Islander), multiracial, “white passing,” or other ethnicities. You belong here if you are documented, DACAmented, or undocumented. You belong here if you are disabled and neuroqueer or if you are nondisabled. You belong here if you identify as LGBTQIA+, nonbinary, cisgender, or if you’re still learning about queer politics and abbreviations. You belong here if you grew up speaking the King’s English or Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, or if you code-switch from English in public to your mother tongue at home. You belong here if your parents were professors, or if you were the first in your family to receive a high school diploma. You belong here, especially, if you’re still figuring out what and who you are, especially if you’re here as part of the collective endeavor to make classrooms more inclusive, respectful, collaborative, and just.
Like many colleges, Columbia is a siloed oasis in New York City, but the politics of the city exist around it. We can’t pretend that we are presently immersed in rulings concerning gun laws, the right to bodily autonomy for people who can get pregnant, climate control, the separation of (Christian) religion and school, and a cascade of implications regarding gay rights and contraception. Hearings on the January 6th insurrection have been ongoing. Mass shootings remain commonplace. 1 out of 5 people infected with COVID-19 will contract long COVID, a disorder with symptoms much like ME, and those cases are on the rise.
An onslaught of bad news can freeze us into inaction and fracture our attention, impacting our ability to learn. We will, as a community, work through this inaction by talking about whatever needs talking about, shifting our learning priorities as needed, taking whatever tangent appears. Whatever we discuss in the classroom is a learning moment, even if it deviates from the material on the Calendar.
All that said, this is a first-year writing course, University Writing, intended to provide you with some basics of critical thinking and academic writing and introduce you to the types of papers you may have to write in University Writing in the fall. This course doesn’t seek to denounce or alter your ethical standpoint, but challenge it on the basis of theory and logic until you’re able to articulate it more critically and clearly in the context of any arguments you might be formulating. As an introduction to University Writing, this course is organized into two progressions, each consisting of class activities, readings, and writing exercises, all of which will prepare you to write a particular kind of essay. In Progression One, you will learn to critically respond to texts by distilling their primary claims, concepts, or methods. In Progression Two, you will learn to create and enter into conversation or debate with multiple texts. The course will culminate with a portfolio of revised work, because writing is a continual drafting, rewriting, and re-envisioning process.
This class is a seminar and workshop, despite being fully online this summer, meaning that its success depends on your constructive participation, openness and considerateness. Don’t be afraid to reveal your weaknesses and your strengths, and I will do the same. Your regular attendance and participation are essential to both your own and your classmates’ learning. You and your classmates will learn from each other through our discussions and through reading each other’s work through daily synchronous and asynchronous classwork. We’ll learn new models for the college essay, learn how to formulate strong claims, practice close reading, and discuss essays, and learn how to appropriately position our ideas alongside the ideas of others.
Please take time to review the syllabus before July 7, which is the date on which I will go over any questions you might have about the course. The first day will be reserved for brief introductions and a diagnostic “exam” that will help me assess your skill level so I can better tailor my lessons to your abilities. Take time also to familiarize yourself with the technological spaces we’ll be using, primarily Canvas and this course blog.
Given the short length of the whole course and the long class sessions, we will work on discussion boards and drafts in class as well as for homework. If you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of work for this class, please let me know.
All the material, including the syllabus, PDFs of readings and handouts, video lectures, and Zoom links will be posted to Canvas. Daily agendas, video transcripts, lecture notes and general feedback on your essays will be posted to the course blog, and these blog links will be posted to Canvas as well. Any videos will be captioned, and transcripts will be provided on the course blog. Most of your written work will occur on the discussion boards and in the form of your essays, which you will post to assignment drop boxes on Canvas. I’ll be checking Canvas every day to assess and moderate the dialogue that you’re having in all these spaces, so make sure to take time to engage in this work during and after class.
If you have difficulty speaking up in class, you can write your thoughts/comments in our collaborative note-taking Google Doc, linked on Canvas and in the syllabus. We may also use chats on Canvas if you or your peer review group require any one-on-one assistance during class or afterwards during office hours.
That’s a wrap for now. I look forward to a provocative and productive semester with you all and to meeting you on our first day of class! In the meantime, if you have questions don’t hesitate to reach out.
