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In this seminar we will study the role of objects in literature and explore their enormous (narrative) potential. After first establishing a theoretical framework with which to approach things and thingness (via Arjun Appadurai, Bill Brown, and Bruno Latour, for example), we will read works from several periods in literary history and consider the interaction of the animate and inanimate that they describe: Here, things may present themselves as ornaments or symbols, become extensions of self or remain obstinately other - but they invariably tell complex stories and worlds which we will analyze against the background of different literary modes and styles. Among the 'material' to study are works by Sarah Orne Jewett, Edith Wharton, Ralph Ellison, Virginia Woolf, or William Carlos Williams.
Please purchase a copy of Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs and Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth (ISBN 9780393624540). All other texts will be provided on Moodle. |
