Teaching

I teach a wide range of classes, from intro-level Social Psychology and Personality Psychology to graduate seminars in Creative Thought, Teaching of Psychology, Academic Writing & Publishing.

Many people have asked for a copy of the reading list for my graduate Academic Writing & Publishing seminar. The reading lists changes each semester, based on who is taking the class and what I think they might want to learn, but it splits into a small group of "Required Readings" and a larger group of "Optional Readings."

The optional readings are essays and works of humor, memoir, and literary non-fiction from outside of academic psychology. My goal is to bring some other voices into our classroom, spark a broader approach to voice and style, and introduce the students to some writers I admire.

If you're curious, here's the reading list from the Fall 2018 version of the class.

Required Readings

• Melissa Febos: "Do You Want to Be Known For Your Writing, or For Your Swift Email Responses? How Patriarchy Has Fucked Up Your Priorities"

• Constance Hale: Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose (2nd ed.)

• Anne Lamott: "Shitty First Drafts" & "Perfectionism," from Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

• Paul Silvia: Write It Up: Practical Strategies for Writing and Publishing Journal Articles

Optional Readings

• Sheridan Baker: "Punctuation" and "Writing Good Sentences," from The Practical Stylist (2nd ed.)

• Kevin Birmingham: "'The Great Shame of Our Profession’: How the Humanities Survive on Exploitation"

• Dorothy Bishop: "How to Bury Your Academic Writing"

• Iván Brave: "How to Apologize to Your Father in Spanish"

• Andrea Long Chu: "I Worked with Avital Ronell. I Believe Her Accuser"

• Lina María Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas: "Tinfoil Astronaut"

• David Denby: "The Limits of 'Grit'"

• Roxane Gay: "To Scratch, Claw, or Grope Clumsily or Frantically," from Bad Feminist

• Roxane Gay: "My Body Is Wildly Undisciplined And I Deny Myself Nearly Everything I Desire"

• Mike Lacher: "I'm Comic Sans, Asshole"

• Stephen Leeper: "On Guard," from Salaam, Love: American Muslim Men on Love, Sex, and Intimacy

• Sarah Fawn Montgomery: "Taking Up Space"

• Carley Moore: "Why I Can’t Have Coffee with You: Saying No to the Patriarchy"

• Keith Pandolfi: "The Case for Bad Coffee"

• Laurie Penny: "Life Hacks of the Poor and Aimless"

• Paul Rosenblatt: "When to Quit," from Restarting Stalled Research

• William Saroyan: Essay from Places Where I've Done Time

• Michele Serros: "A Bedtime Story"

• Laura Turner: "Missing Hope: A Trio of Miscarriages, and What Happened After"

• Bryan Washington: "Montrose, the Neighborhood that Gave Us Everything"

• Bryan Washington: "The Rodeo: A Holdover from Texas Lore, and Part of the Changing Story Houston Tells About Itself"