ENGL 12021 - Hoards & Other Stuff: Lit & Material Obj

Course Credit: 1
Tupperware, trinkets, puzzle pieces, and plastic bags. Our world is littered with stuff, accumulations that sometimes devolve into hoards, as reality television has made clear. In this course we will explore our relationship to things-and their longstanding place in literature. We will read objects as vessels for social, affective, and economic investments, but also confront such questions as: What do objects signify, if anything? Why do we accumulate so much, and how has that tendency transferred into the digital age? Readings will include: a hoarder’s memoir and a decluttering handbook; poetry by Alexander Pope, Christina Rossetti, T.S. Eliot, and Jorge Luis Borges; novels such as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, and Orhan Pamuk’s The Museum of Innocence; and essays by Donald Winnicott, Susan Stewart, and Teju Cole. English majors and minors may take a second English 120xx for credit, but it will not count as one of the required electives for the major or the minor. [AH]