MEET STEPHEN J. MUSCOLINO
Thinker. Researcher. Teacher.
BIOGRAPHY
For many, the professors they encounter in college and post-grad become significantly influential figures for the rest of their lives. Stephen had this experience with many mentors throughout his educational background. From the Pacific Northwest of the States at Seattle Pacific University to nearly 4,500 miles away in Scotland as an international student at the University of Glasgow, these relationships ultimately solidified his decision to pursue a career in teaching and academia.
ACADEMIC WORK
Scholarly Accomplishments
June 2017
PhD thesis, University of Glasgow
Abstract available here
November 2018
Video Dissertation (Distinction), University of Glasgow
Available for viewing upon request
My research investigates the impact of social media (i.e., Twitter, Facebook, Google) on the current topography of news consumption (in the West). I substantiate my research through claims that can be readily backed up by contemporary data (PEW polls, government research, university-level scholarly articles, etc.) via ANOVA Analysis. The underlying objective is to discover the manner in which people receive / watch / “consume” the news through social media—rather than traditional media outlets such as television, radio, and newspapers / magazines—and the manner in which social media works to curate the journalistic medium for political and capitalistic purposes.
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW - GRADUATE TEACHING ASSISTANT IN THE COMPARATIVE LITERATURE DEPATMENT
2015-2018
Comparative Literature 1A: Heroic men
This course analyses works representing different types of hero: classical, tragic, popular, traditional, comic, anti-heroes and others. It explores the notion of heroism, its absence in our lives and our longing for it as this finds expression in various historical contexts and cultures. It also deals with the notion of masculinity as a cultural and historical construct.
Comparative Literature 1B: Heroic women
This course analyses various depictions of heroic women in different cultural contexts and historical times. It explores the notion of female heroism in contrast to male heroism, indicating major differences and similarities. It also deals with women writers’ responses to male writers’ depictions of female protagonists.
CURRENT TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2021-2024
2022-Present
The Tufts University Prison Initiative of the Tisch College of Civic Life (TUPIT) brings Tufts faculty and students together with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, educators, organizers, corrections staff, and scholars of criminal justice to facilitate creative and collaborative responses to the problems of mass incarceration and racial injustice. Extending the vision of Tufts University and Tisch College, TUPIT is dedicated to providing transformative educational experiences that foster student, faculty, and community members’ capacities to become active citizens of change in the world.
LECTURER IN FIRST-YEAR WRITING AT TUFTS UNIVERSITY
2021-Present
English 1 (Expository Writing) explores the principles of effective written communication and provides intensive practice in writing various types of expository prose, especially analysis and persuasion. Essays by contemporary and earlier authors will be examined as instances of the range and versatility of standard written English.
English 2 (Digital Media Cultures) in this writing-intensive course, we will reflect upon, analyze, and argue our way through questions that investigate and interrogate the increasing presence and power of computers and networked digital devices in various spheres of our daily life—including areas of our contemporary culture such as education, commerce, political life, family life, sex, art, entertainment, and war.
LECTURER IN FOUNDATIONS OF ACADEMIC WRITING AT BABSON COLLEGE
2021-Present
WRT2000 - Research Writing
This course prompts students to put their theory of writing into practice through writing and composing in research-based genres for audiences in academic discourse communities. Students learn to recognize and adhere to the discursive and procedural conventions of particular communities of scholarly practice, and they examine and participate in modes of scholarly inquiry while learning about and engaging in best practices for finding, evaluating, and incorporating sources. Students produce scholarly arguments in essay form while exploring the roles that other textual forms can and do play in scholarship, and they continually reflect on how this work informs their theory and understanding of writing more generally.
PREVIOUS TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Our mission is to help students develop and strengthen skills in expository writing, researched writing, and critical thinking skills they will use in their college career and beyond.
LECTURER IN ENGLISH AT THE WENTWORTH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
An introduction to college-level academic writing and research. Instruction focuses on critical reading and analysis, composing and revising strategies, writing for varied rhetorical purposes, critical thinking, information literacy, and writing from sources.
LECTURER IN WRITING AND RHETORIC AT THE WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE (WPI)
An introduction to the examination of the appropriate dissemination of scientific information in common science writing genres such as science journalism, consulting reports, and white papers, and policy and procedure documents. In a workshop setting, students will write and revise documents that promote a broad understanding of scientific research and analysis of specialized knowledge.
OVERVIEW OF COURSES
Knowledge for Every Level
GRADUATE COURSE
Syllabus in Development for Publication in 2023-2024
Course Title: Writing in Real-Time: Fictions of Digitization
This course focuses on American novels written over the past ten years. The themes of these novels—of characters caught in limbo between analog and digital materialization—provide insights into contemporary debates by addressing the complex relations between self and others, history and technology, corporeal and virtual, private and public lives, personal and collective memory. Writing in Real-Time aims to investigate (or theorize) such narratives by turning them into a prism, a conceptual tool through which we can understand larger transformations currently at work in American culture.
TUFTS UNIVERSITY, DEPARTMENT OF FIRST-YEAR WRITING - ENG I, EXPOSITORY WRITING
2021 - Present
The First-Year Writing Program emphasizes qualities common to successful writing in all disciplines. These include: a clear thesis; a well-organized and developed argument; well-illustrated points; and thoughtful, lively prose. Small classes offer the opportunity for close, personal attention and an atmosphere of collaborative learning. Expository Writing (ENG I) explores the principles of effective written communication and provides intensive practice in writing various types of expository prose, especially analysis and persuasion. Essays by contemporary and earlier authors will be examined as instances of the range and versatility of standard written English.
TUFTS UNIVERSITY, DEPARTMENT OF FIRST-YEAR WRITING - ENG II, DIGITAL MEDIA CULTURES
January 2022 - Present
Is Google making us stupid? Would we all be better off if our brains were directly linked to the web? Should we legalize human-robot marriage? In this writing-intensive course, we will reflect upon, analyze, and argue our way through such questions, as we investigate the increasing presence and power of computers and networked devices in various spheres of daily life—education, commerce, political life, family life, sex, art, entertainment, and war. Course readings and viewings, as well as your own essays, will consider, for example, how digitization has transformed media industries as well as our own deep-seated habits of visual and auditory consumption; the extent to which social media has upended traditional modes of self-presentation, group formation, and civic engagement; and the ways in which notions of artificial intelligence—from the early days of robotics to recent representations of cyborgs and cyberpunks in film, literature, and pop culture—challenge us to reimagine what it means to be human and, even more fundamentally, what it means to be alive. Over the course of the semester, you will produce no fewer than thirty pages of polished, peer-reviewed writing explicating and evaluating the dynamics, stakes, and implications of our ever-evolving digital life.
BABSON COLLEGE, DEPARTMENT OF ARTS & HUMANITIES - RHT (RHETORIC) 1000-1001 FOUNDATIONS OF ACADEMIC WRITING SEQUENCE
2021 - Present
WRT1001: Writing Across Contexts -- This course introduces students to key concepts in meaning-making and helps them develop rhetorically sophisticated approaches to reading, writing, and composing across contexts. Students refine and reflect on their own composing practices and processes past, present, and future as they read, analyze, and create texts for a wide variety of audiences, purposes, and media forms. At the end of the term and with the vocabulary developed in the course, each student articulates in an essay their own working theory of and approach to writing that they can mobilize and adapt for future academic and professional contexts.
WRT2000: This course prompts students to put their theory of writing into practice through writing and composing in research-based genres for audiences in academic discourse communities. Students learn to recognize and adhere to the discursive and procedural conventions of particular communities of scholarly practice, and they examine and participate in modes of scholarly inquiry while learning about and engaging in best practices for finding, evaluating, and incorporating sources. Students produce scholarly arguments in essay form while exploring the roles that other textual forms can and do play in scholarship, and they continually reflect on how this work informs their theory and understanding of writing more generally.
WPI, DEPARTMENT OF WRITING & RHETORIC - WR1011 WRITING ABOUT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
2021 - 2022
This course will examine the appropriate dissemination of scientific information in common science writing genres such as science journalism, consulting reports, and white papers, and policy and procedure documents. In a workshop setting, students will write and revise documents that promote a broad understanding of scientific research and analysis of specialized knowledge. Course lectures and discussions investigate the ethics of scientific reporting and teach students how to recognize deceptive texts and arguments (both quantitative and qualitative). The course is reading and writing intensive and is intended for students with backgrounds in a scientific discipline who are interested in applying their disciplinary knowledge.
WPI, DEPARTMENT OF WRITING & RHETORIC - WR2010 ELEMENTS OF STYLE
2021 - 2022
This course will cover basic principles of prose style for expository and argumentative writing. Students will learn to evaluate writing for stylistic problems and will learn revision strategies for addressing those problems. The ultimate goal of the course is to help students write sentences and paragraphs that are clear, concise, and graceful. In the first part of the course, students will review parts of speech, basic sentence types, and sentence and paragraph structure in order to understand how sentences are put together and the impact their construction has on readers. Then, through hands-on writing exercises and extensive revision of their own and others' writing, students will learn strategies for tightening their prose (concision), achieving, flow, (cohesion and coherence), and improving usage (language specificity and precision).
UMASS LOWELL, FYWP COURSE - COLLEGE WRITING I
September, 2018 - 2021
In College Writing I, we study and practice academic writing. Students will extend and develop their rhetorical knowledge, and apply that knowledge through regular informal and formal writing. By generating writing that aims to respond, explain, analyze, critique, interpret, and synthesize, students will learn to engage audiences for a variety of purposes in a range of contexts. In this student-centered course, writers will hone their craft. Approaching writing as a process of pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading, students will enhance the clarity and expression of their ideas. Students will exit with an awareness of their strengths and weaknesses as writers; successful completion of this course will prepare students for the research writing they will begin to practice in CWII.
UMASS LOWELL, FYWP WORKSHOP - COLLEGE WRITING II & CWII HONORS
September, 2018 - 2021
In College Writing II, we study and practice academic research writing. Students will apply their rhetorical knowledge in the context of academic research through regular informal and formal writing. Students will generate and pursue complex theses through purpose-driven, process-based writing that engages audiences and integrates research. In this workshop course, writers will develop effective research habits and become familiar with the standards of academic research writing. Students will exit with an awareness of their strengths and weaknesses as writers and researchers; successful completion of this course will prepare students to meet the writing challenges they will encounter throughout their academic careers and beyond.
WIT, DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCES - ENGLISH 1100 SEQUENCE
September 2021 - 2023
An introduction to college-level academic writing and research. Instruction focuses on the writing process, rhetorical strategies, critical thinking, informational literacy, and writing from sources. Students will explore their academic writing process through the critical reading of a range of scholarly texts, including creative non-fiction, journalism, philosophy, political theory, cultural history and theory, aesthetic criticism and theory, and the personal essay.