First-Year Research Seminar: The Thingliness of Things

Catalog description

This course engages a seemingly simple question: What is an object? Relatedly, what is a thing? As a means of illuminating these questions, we will consult everyday objects, theories of various object forms (from our very first loved objects, to commodities, fetishes, even lost things) and literary and artistic representations. We will endeavor to learn to read objects both by having them at hand and by understanding how economic, psychic, and social values shape their properties. In this process, we will engage the popular view that objects tell us something, first and foremost, about the people who create them and use them in all varieties of ways. We will also encounter the proposition that objects may have an intentionality of their own, and that humans do not dictate the meaning of all things. Students will write 2 shorter close-reading essays and a longer research paper in which they delve into a more thorough investigation of an object of their choice.