| Course Title: The Agency of Things: Reflections on Stuff and Material Culture |
| Start Date: 09/06/2023 End Date: 12/19/2023 |
| Term: Fall Semester 2023 |
| Description: What is a thing? What is stuff? Water bottles, trash, smartphones, photos, dirt, a broken printer, your favorite socks... Where do they come from and where are they going? In this course we'll gain an understanding of the political, historical, philosophical, ecological, and affective agency of objects and non-human things. We will study how artists, writers, collectors, environmentalists, and migrants engage with the stuff around us. Our study will be enlightened by several excursions to see collections of non-human things, such as the MHC Skinner Museum and the Botanic Gardens. Students will also have a chance to decipher the meaning and global trajectories of their own stuff, in addition to making things in Mount Holyoke's Fimbel Maker & Innovation Lab. |
| Distribution(s): NO - Meets No Distrib. Rqmt , FY - First-Year Seminar , WI - Writing-Intensive |
| Academic Level Of Course: Undergraduate | Credits:4.00 |
| Faculty | Phone | Email address |
| Megan Saltzman | msaltzma@mtholyoke.edu |
| Meeting Dates | Method | Meeting days | Meeting times | Building name | Room | Frequency |
| 09/06/2023 - 12/19/2023 | Seminar | Tuesday and Thursday | 09:00AM - 10:15AM | CIRU - Ciruti | 211 | Weekly |
| Requisite Courses | ||
| None |
| Comments |
| Additional Comments |
| Course Tags | ||
| FYSEM0001 | First-Year Seminar | This is a First-Year Seminar. |
| MAKER0001 | MAKER: Courses in the Fimbel Maker & Innov. Lab | This course is taught in the Fimbel Maker and Innovation Lab. |
| Cross-listed Sections |
| None |
| Course Availability | ||||
| Section status: Closed | Capacity: 14 | Enrollment: 15 | Available: 0 | Waitlist: 0 |
BOOK INFORMATION
| Book List | Required | Publisher Full Price |
| To be determined. |
| Additional Book Comments |
| This is NOT the complete book list for this class. |