First-Year Seminars 110UF - The Agency of Things: Reflections on Stuff and Material Culture

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.

Mount Holyoke first-year students only, by placement.