Underscoring the essential skills of reading and writing in multiple fields of knowledge, Crosscurrents is a thematic reader that connects ideas and texts from across the disciplines. With its rich variety of readings that span the major college disciplines, Crosscurrents is a true writing across the curriculum reader. Three introductory chapters on critical reading, thinking, and research (Part 1) provide a broad, yet concise rhetoric that orients both students and instructors to disciplines that may be outside their comfort zone or areas of expertise. These chapters offer assistance in reading and comprehending material in each of the disciplines. Foundational, seminal readings foreground each of the eight thematic chapters in Part 2; additional, mainly contemporary, selections drawn from print and electronic books, journals, and general interest periodicals provide a wide range of source materials so that students can further understand each discipline and its intricacies.

Table of Contents:
PART 1: READING AND WRITING IN THE DISCIPLINES Chapter 1       Knowledge, Reading, and Writing across Disciplines             Preparing a Foundation for Learning              Understanding Genres                         Sciences                         Social Sciences                         Humanities                         Genres Used across Fields             Linking Thinking, Reading, and Writing             Learning in Disciplines             Categorizing Academic Disciplines                         Natural and Applied Sciences                         Social Sciences                         Business and Applied/Professional Studies                         History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies                         Humanities                         Creative Arts             Understanding Genre Expectations in the Disciplines             Researching in the Disciplines             Reasoning                         Cross-Check   Chapter 2       Reading across Disciplines: Reading for Learning, for Analysis, and for Argument             Reading for Learning                         Strategies for Reading             Reading the Author’s Logic: Logical Fallacies             Reading Visual Aids             Reading Internet Sites and Determining Credibility             Reading for Analysis                         Strategies for Analytic Reading             Analyzing Arguments             Argumentation in the Disciplines                         Cross-Check              Chapter 3       Writing and Researching: Genres, Practices, and Processes             Writing Conventions                         Rules                         Guidelines                         Strategies             Writing as a Cyclical Process                         Planning and Invention                         Analyzing your Audiences                         Writing Arguments                         Developing a Thesis Statement             Researching                         Types of Research                         Starting Your Research                         Narrowing Your Topic                         Taking Notes             Synthesizing and Incorporating Borrowed Material without   Plagiarizing                         Organizing Ideas                         Working with Visual Aids                         Revising, Editing, and Proofreading             Documenting Sources                         MLA Documentation                                     Annotated Student Paper                         APA Documentation                                                   Cross-Check   PART 2: ANTHOLOGY OF READINGS Chapter 4       Nature, Genetics, and the Philosophy of Science   Introduction   Emily Martin, et. al. “Scientific Literacy, What It Is, Why It’s Important, and Why Scientists Think We Don’t Have It”   Foundations in the Philosophy of Science Thomas Kuhn “The Historical Structure of Scientific Discovery”   Paul Feyerabend, from Against Method   The Tools of Science: A World Too Small to See (images)   Genetics and Human Identity Barry Commoner “Unraveling the DNA Myth”   Francis Fukuyama “Why We Should Worry” from Our Posthuman Future   Visions of the Posthuman (images)   Michael J. Sandel “The Case Against Perfection”   Olivia Judson “The Selfless Gene”   Robert Lanza “A New Theory of the Universe”   Natalie Angier “My God Problem—And Theirs”   Thinking Crosscurrently     Chapter 5       Business and Economics   Introduction   Barbara Ehrenreich, “Maid to Order”   Foundations: Free Enterprise and Social Responsibility Milton Friedman, “Economic Freedom and Political Freedom” (from Capitalism and Freedom)   John Maynard Keynes, “The End of Laissez-Faire”   Doing Business in America (images)   Barbara Kellerman, “Leadership: Warts and All”   Nature and the Economic Realm: Causes and Conflicts Paul Krugman, “Irrational Exuberance” (from The Great Unraveling)   Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, “Information Asymmetry” (from Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything)     Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan, “Laughing All the Way to the Darwinian Bank” (from Mean Genes,)   At Work in America: The Triumph and Trials of an Economic System (images)   Steve Denning, “Why Amazon Can’t Make a Kindle in the USA”   Thinking Crosscurrently     Chapter 6       Government, Political Science, and Public Policy   Introduction   David Mamet, “Political Civility”   Foundations: The Individual and the State Thomas Jefferson, “The Declaration of Independence”   Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience”   Mahatma Gandhi, “The Non-Violent Society”   Governments and their Symbols (images)   Activism, Social Change, and its Discontents Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”   Caitlin Flanagan, “How Serfdom Saved the Women’s Movement”   Activism and Social Change (images)   Jane Mayer, “The Black Sites”   Thinking Crosscurrently     Chapter 7       Education and Society   Introduction   Shelby Steele, “The New Sovereignty”   Foundations: Theorizing Education John Dewey, “My Pedagogic Creed”   Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar”   The Classroom: Then and Now (images)   Education in the Modern Age Jay P. Greene, “The Myth of Helplessness” (from Education Myths)   Christina Hoff Sommers “The War Against Boys”   Diane Ravitch, “What I Learned About School Reform” (from The Death and the Life of the American School)   Alissa Quart, “The Baby Genius Edutainment Complex”   Emily Bernard, “Teaching the N-Word”   Jeff Sharlet, “Straight Man’s Burden”   Guns in America: Two Views (images)   Dan Baum, “Happiness is a Worn Gun”   Malcolm Gladwell, “The 10,000 Hour Rule” (from Outliers: The Story of Success)   Thinking Crosscurrently     Chapter 8       Communication and Pop Culture   Introduction   Foundations: Theories of Communication and Culture Marshall McLuhan from Understanding Media   Dick Hebdige, “Subculture and Style”   Comics and the Graphic Novel Scott McCloud “Setting the Record Straight”   Douglas Wolk from Reading Comics   Lynda Barry, from The Greatest of Marlys   Noel Murray and Scott Tobias, “How Has the Culture of TV (and TV-Watching) Changed?   Susan Willis “Disney World” (from Inside the Mouse: Work and Play at Disney World)   Susan Linn “Marketing, Media, and the First Amendment” (from Consuming Kids)   Using Advertising to Raise Awareness: Animal Rights (images)   William Deresiewicz, “Faux Friendship”   Thinking Crosscurrently     Chapter 9       Philosophy and Psychology   Introduction   Foundations: Examining the Self William James “The Will to Believe”   Plato “The Apology”   Understanding Human Emotions (images)   V. S. Ramachandran, “Neuroscience: The New Philosophy” (from A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness)   Thinking Beyond the Human: Artificial Intelligence and Transhumanism   A. M. Turing “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”   Ray Kurzweil, “The Law of Accelerating Returns”   Proving the Existence of God Three Arguments for the Existence of God             William Paley from Natural Theology             St. Thomas Aquinas from Summa Theologica             St. Anselm from Proslogium   Theology and Cartoons (images)   Kwasi Wiredu from Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective   Robert Orsi “When 2 + 2 = 5”   Thinking Crosscurrently     Chapter 10     History and Culture   Introduction   Jacques Barzun, “The Coming Age” (from From Dawn to Decadence 1500 to Present: 50 Years of Western Cultural Life)   Foundations: Historical Process and Human Agency Abraham Lincoln, “The Gettysburg Address” and “The Second Inaugural Address”   W. E. B. Dubois, “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” (from The Souls of Black Folk)   Images of the American Civil War (images)   Richard Rodriguez, “In the Brown Study” (from Brown)   Bruce Catton, “Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts”   Illegal Immigration in America: Political Cartoons (images)   Immigration: Pathways and Promises   Judith Ortiz Cofer, “Rituals: A Prayer, a Candle, and a Notebook”   Belle Yang, “The Language of Dreams”   Margaret Regan, “Prologue” (from The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona-Mexico Borderlands)   Andrea Elliot, “A Muslim Leader in Brooklyn, Reconciling 2 Worlds”   Thinking Crosscurrently     Chapter 11     Literature, Language, and Art   Introduction   Barbara Wallraff, “What Global Language?”   Foundations: What Makes it Literature? Oscar Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray   Virginia Woolf, “Shakespeare's Sister” (from A Room of One’s Own)   Architecture as Art (images)   The Interdisciplinary Imagination Bharati Mukherjee, “The Management of Grief”   James Tiptree, Jr. “The Last Flight of Doctor Ain”   Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street”     Art and Medicine Through the Ages (8-page, 4-color insert)   The Art of Love, the Passion of Art Kate Chopin, “The Storm”   James Joyce, “Araby”   Terry Eagleton, “The Rise of English” (from Literary Theory: An Introduction)   Thinking Crosscurrently   Appendix        Breaking Down Assignments: A Guide for Students