Reading & Composition

Flip through the cable channels and it’s easy to see that we, as a culture, are very interested in other people’s homes. From Hoarders, where we can gawk at other people’s misfortunes, to the home makeover reality shows on HGTV, you could spend a few hours a day peeping into others’ private spaces.

What’s so interesting about these spaces? Is our pleasure purely voyeuristic? What can you learn about other people from their homes? To explore these questions, we’ll peek into characters’ houses and apartments, both in text and on film. The course will focus on urban interiors, allowing us to examine the relationship between intimate interiors and public city streets. We’ll be asking whether there is a specific literature of apartments and apartment buildings, and move towards articulating the relationship between interior and exterior in these works. Students will respond to these questions through active class discussion and guided writing assignments (culminating in a research paper).