Discard Studies: Exploring the Abject, Discarded and Disposable

Catalog description

Waste is a dynamic cultural phenomenon, a language of power, and a material object. Discard studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the politics of production, consumption, and disposability by beginning with objects such as household garbage, sewage, hazardous waste, and e-waste. In times of planned obsolesce, infrastructural disrepair, austerity, and urban divestment, scholars have turned to waste, in its many material and symbolic forms, to shed light onto topics as diverse as urban ecology, labor, justice and inequality, governance, informality, development, abjection, and protest. This course serves as an introduction to discard studies by delving into the foundational texts and contemporary scholarship in the field. In the first section of the course, we will explore different disciplinary and conceptual approaches to studying waste. We will then ground these frameworks with place-based readings and exercises in New York City. In order to identify and explore global connections and divergences in the politics of waste, we will move to international and transnational studies of waste and uneven geographies of disposability. The final section will involve projects aimed at training students to become discardians. “Readings may include the work of Robin Nagle, Sarah Moore, Vinay Gidwani, and Adriana Petryna.”