The Mystery behind the Material World

5 credits

Things are everywhere. We make them and they also make us. Things are evocative, aesthetic, and unnerving. They define us. We need them to communicate, to remember, to govern. But things need us too. This course is an introduction to the study of things, architecture, and so on from an interdisciplinary perspective. Topics such as identity, memory, commodities/gifts, cognition, and agency are explored through the analysis of the material world. Offered: jointly with ARCHY 236.