2024 - Spring

Writing Commentary on Campaign 2024

Course Number: JOUR-GA 1182.022

Day & Time: Mon | 6:20 PM – 9:20 PM

Location: 20 Cooper Square, Room 700

Instructor: David Dent

This course will explore the Presidential Primaries of Campaign 2024 through a series of writing and reporting assignments that compel students to engage and analyze the impact of the “American Extremes” and/or the portraits of polarization on contemporary electoral politics. Students will dive into debates and discourse that emerge from the contemporary partisan landscape. However, the journey through what some might call “American Political Theater” will not be restricted to the norms of the Two-Party system. Students will consider elements of the tumultuous road to the White House beyond Biden and Trumpism, as the country witnesses the Quixotic campaigns of the likes of Cornel West and the limitations and/or promise of such movements. One assignment will be based on a class field trip to a swing county. We will also pay close attention to the New York primary. Students will also read classic pieces of campaign reporting and look at the socioeconomic motivations of the electorate through the prism of works that inadvertently seize the contemporary contexts that shape the perspectives of voters: Poverty by America,  Desmond; The Narcissistic Epidemic, Living in the Age of Entitlement, Twenge and Campbell. The final piece will be a piece of long-form reporting or commentary or an essay analyzing an aspect of the coverage of the campaign season.