Reading & Composition

This course is dedicated to three figures that lurk at the fringes of capitalism and seem to represent at once the epitome, the inverse, and even the undoing of its logics. Our aim will be to shed light on the contemporary obsession with hoarding by studying the hoarder in relation to two precursors of 19th and 20th century narrative and theory: the fetishist and the collector. We will examine the material practices and psychic mechanisms that define these identities and authorize distinctions between them, as well as the diverse historical contexts from which they emerge. More broadly, we will theorize the relationships between objects and narrative.

Our study of the fetishist begins with writings by Freud and Marx, along with selections from the vast body of theoretical work they inspired. Christian Metz’ “Photography and the Fetish” will propel our examination of still and moving images in short films dedicated to possessions: Miska Draskoczy’s “Here’s the Thing” webisodes and Martin Hampton’s Possessed. The unit on collecting will include the novel Cousin Pons by Honoré de Balzac, as well as William Davies King’s memoir Collections of Nothing. Moving from the collector to the hoarder, we will first consider the distinctions between collecting and accumulating set out by Susan Stewart in On Longing and Jean Baudrillard in System of Objects, then turn to contemporary texts dedicated to hoarding: E. L. Doctorow’s 2009 novel Homer and Langley, Jessie Sholl’s 2010 memoir Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean About Her Mother’s Compulsive Hoarding, and Randy Frost and Gail Steketee’s 2010 Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, as well as episodes of Bones and CSI.

Coursework will include readings and reading-responses, active participation in class discussions and frequent writing assignments and revisions. Regular attendance and participation is required. You will be encouraged to think critically about your own as well as others’ ideas, and you will learn how to express your interpretations in a coherent and cohesive way. This class will help prepare you for the rest of your academic career, regardless of your field of interest or the length of your studies.