READING FOR WRITERS: TRANSCENDING DISCIPLINE. This course is designed for Literary Studies majors, Writing concentrators, and other advanced undergrads interested in breaking out of the constraints of traditional writing styles, and transcending the inherited conventions that govern the presentation of knowledge in its various discipline-bound, realistic, journalistic, and scholarly forms. From the footnote to forms of argumentation, we examine written and graphic conventions on the way to exploring alternative ways to represent knowledge. We draw on examples from a wide range of writers and artists who have played with inherited symbols (such as the U.S. flag, the dollar sign, maps) and texts of all kinds (legal and bureaucratic documents, news) to create new works that critique, subvert, and otherwise modify the inherited forms. We also look at published works that modify or challenge scholarly conventions (such as the crocheted coral reefs that inhabit a beautiful no-man's land between traditional crafts, applied mathematics and evolutionary biology). Along the way, students contribute their own examples to the syllabus and do creative work that expresses research in non- or anti-disciplinary modalities. We work across media. Non-writers enthusiastically welcome.