The first winter term writing project:

portraying the fuzziness, the entanglements that characterize lifes edges

DUE: Tuesday, February 10, 2015

THE CONTEXT: We are working with two quite different renderings of genetically-modified
organisms as a focus of investigation: the fictive world of 23rd century Thailand, itself a tangled web
of different cultures, powerful government ministeries, gene-hacked plants, complex characters of
uncertain motive, devastating plant diseases and pests, calorie men, ghosts and Emiko, the windup
girland week-by-week a growing (but still small) number of articles that feature an equally
tangled collection of scientists, journalists, activists, just plain citizens, mulitinatural corporations,
state and national legislators, and many sorts of plants and animals as the objects of genetic
transformation.
As you know full well by now, a central claim of the course is that the limits questioned in the
course title are fuzzy, debated, spoken and written about in many different ways (for example,
scientifically, politically, economically, and morally) by all sorts of people from many vantage points.
Our study is in the midst ofand aboutall of that. To recall another metaphor I have used, we
have been parachuted into unfamiliar territory and weve been working to find our way around in
settings where most of we encounter has not yet been settled; disagreement still abounds.
THE ESSAY ASSIGNMENT: Working with either TheWindup Girl or the (Thursday) articles (the
full set through week 5 will soon be in your hands), craft the body of an essay (we will put the
introduction and summary conclusion aside for now) in which you portray the complexity of
drawing lines (of establishing limits) between the natural and the modified. If you choose the
articles alternative you may find it useful to use the web to obtain more information about the
people, places, companies and such that appear in the articles.
Presume that you are writing for an audience that has not read the bookor the articles if thats the
choice you make. The portrayal should make specific use of your source(s). Rather than vague
generalizations about the entanglements in the readings and our discussion of them, make reference;
point us to the material at hand. Provide page references, short quotations, informative
paraphrases, perhaps even the occasional block quote. Show the reader that you are very familiar
with the material with which you are workingand that you are portraying for them.
LENGTH AND FORMAT: 1500-1600 words, typed, size 12 font, double-spaced.
NOTE ABOUT THE SECOND ESSAY OF WINTER TERM: What you will be asked to do in the
second essay assignment for winter term is to pull the two lines of inquiryone fictional; the other,
non-fictionaltogether. That is, you will be asked to entangle the two entanglements.You will
bring the Tuesday and Thursday trajectories-of-reading into a common essay. But more about that
later.