Humanities and Fine Arts 191HFA15 - FYS- UMass Collected

Everybody collects something - ideas, objects, words or things. This course will explore the complex - often contradictory - and at times outright bizarre nature of collecting on the UMass campus. This exploratory course will open with readings and conversations about the topic more broadly before moving on to campus-wide excursions to discover the many, rich and varied UMass collections. Trips begin with more established collections repositories as found in the Du Bois Library, University Museum of Contemporary Art and Natural History Collections before heading off the well-beaten track into discovering the less obvious assemblages of campus buildings and public art, collections within collections, incidental compilations, secret or taboo anthologies, groupings of edible fruit and assortments of nothing found deep in the universe. All will be fodder for discovery. Along the way students will be asked to keep a reflections journal as they digitally compile their own collections of objects found (or missing!) on the UMass campus and at the end of the semester the class will compile some sort of collection of our own.

Open to first-year Humanities and Fine Arts Exploratory Track students and first-year HFA Majors.