COML 1116 - FWS: Things

Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

First-Year Writing Seminar.

Staff.

What can the seemingly mundane objects that populate everyday life tell us about our relationship to the world? And if art, as A.B. Marx put it, is a “secret confession,” what might it confess about this relationship, about “things”? In this seminar, we will explore how art – including literature, film, and visual media – can help us to unlock the hidden stories and histories contained in things. By engaging with these materials, we will learn to think and write about how art reflects on and engages with the “things” of our world, be they objects, commodities, possessions, money, or even bodies. Though we will consider “things” from a variety of contexts, we will concentrate primarily on French literature, film and visual art from the twentieth-century.