November 19, 2007

In collaboration with the Earth Sciences Department, Nancy Peterson, and Nobel laureate Terry Root, PWR instructor Kimberly Moekle has helped spearhead a new interdisciplinary graduate seminar entitled “Going Green: Research, Writing and Reporting to the Public.” One of the goals of the course is to create a Stanford-generated advice column to answer questions from the public about the sustainable use of natural resources.

Moekle describes her role in the course as “guiding graduate students through the translation of their research into formats for two very distinct audiences.” Specifically, the project requires that writers communicate clearly with both the lay public through a mainstream media column and a more technically literate audience via content on a Stanford website. The Hume Writing Center has also contributed to the project, thanks to director Clyde Moneyhun, who has provided workshops for the class addressing issues of audience and genre.

Moekle hopes that more connections such as the one between PWR and the Department of Earth Sciences will help raise visibility for the humanities’ role in shaping action, awareness, and future interdisciplinary projects in the field of sustainability. Such work connects with Moekle’s own work on environmental rhetoric in PWR, as well as her forthcoming essay on the controversial Cape Wind Project in Nantucket Sound, to be published in an anthology entitled, Writing the Earth: Rhetorics and Literacies of Sustainability.