Things in Cultural and Literary Context

Course Objectives:

This course explores the cultural, literary, and philosophical dimensions of contemporary everyday objects. By examining some culturally and symbolically loaded ordinary stuff, students will delve into societal, historical, and individual experiences concerning their relationship with contemporary objects. In the age of Anthropocene, a time marked by hyperobjects, temporal objects, virtual things and the radical digitalization and transformation of our relationship with things, this course provides a platform to reassess the meaning and cultural/philosophical status of things and the way we relate with them. Through films, fiction, theoretical readings and creative assignments, the course offers students an opportunity to develop a fresh perspective on ordinary things. Ultimately challenging their foundational assumptions, this course invites them to critically examine the cultural, philosophical, and literary sense of things.

Course Content:

This course investigates the cultural, literary, and philosophical dimensions of everyday objects through an interdisciplinary approach. It covers a range of topics including the symbolic, historical, and societal meanings of some of the contemporary ordinary things such as waste, burger, perfume, souvenirs, pills, fat, and hashtag. Students will engage with primary and secondary texts, including literary works, philosophical essays, and cultural studies, to explore how these objects shape and reflect human experiences. Students will analyze objects within diverse cultural, philosophical and literary contexts and develop their ideas through individual research, culminating in a final paper.