FWS: Our Stuff, Our Selves: Writing on Everyday Things

Catalog description

While we live in a world that produces material goods at an overwhelming rate, one thing that has not changed throughout history is the complexity of human relationship to the material world. In our increasingly consumerist and digitized culture we still assign value beyond the immediate function of objects, an act that plays a crucial role in constituting memory, identity, and in our understanding of the past, present, and future. In this course students will write about the ways objects communicate meaning, conduct research into the cultural, political, and economic contexts surrounding material artifacts, and across several essays and a group project explore the ways objects both small and large can impact the way we think about ourselves and our world.