Topics in English Literature: The Secret Life of Things

We all love our things -- our Supreme streetwear, Nike sneakers, Iphones -- but we rarely take time to analyze what our attachment to these things means. In this class, we will visit the origins of modern consumer culture to find some answers. We will investigate narratives that claim to be written by things, poems in which persons become things, and narrators who obsess about things. We will read these literary texts alongside works that will help us think about the nature of our attachments, about the gift, the fetish, and what it means to be a person. Our working assumption will be that the early days of commodity culture are especially revealing for insights into our relationships to things. Satisfies the Eighteenth Century requirement.
Course Attributes: EN H; AS HUM; FA HUM; AR HUM; UC ENL; EL EC

Topics in English Literature: The Secret Life of Things

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 5622

Section 01