Reading & Composition

A group of Chicano/a artists spray paint the exterior of an art museum in protest of the museum’s exclusionary practices. An African-born woman writes poetry about the experience of becoming a slave. The son of a dying woman journeys to a land of the dead hoping to meet his long-lost father and reclaim his inheritance. A Native American man spends twenty-four hours trying to earn money to buy back a family heirloom. A black woman abandons her home and previous marriages in search of
true love. What does it mean to own property? What does it mean to inherit property—to share or withhold it from the ones you love? What does it mean to reclaim property? What does it mean to become property? What does it mean to forsake or destroy it?

In this course, we will examine and explore the social dynamics of private property and consider the question of property in relation to the supernatural and the aesthetic. Is there a supernatural dimension to the concept of private property? What, if anything, do the properties and possessions of the living have to do with the dead? Does property produce an aesthetic? These are some of the questions we will explore throughout the semester.

This course fulfills the first half of the University Reading & Composition (R&C) requirement, and we will dedicate ample time to developing our critical thinking and essay-writing skills, paying special attention to argumentation, analysis, and the basics of college-level writing.

Texts and Materials:
“One Hundred Years of Forgiveness,” Clarice Lispector
“What You Pawn I Will Redeem,” Sherman Alexie
The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare ISBN: 0743477561
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston ISBN: 0061120065
Selected poems from César Vallejo, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, and Phillis Wheatley
The Trials of Phillis Wheatley, Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Pedro Páramo, Juan Rulfo ISBN: 0802133908
Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner ISBN: 0679732187
Artworks by Asco
Excerpts from works by Harry Gamboa Jr., Marx, Walter Benjamin, and Hegel
Many of the materials above will be included in our course reader, which will be available at Zee Zee
Copy, 2431-C Durant Avenue. Visual materials will be available through our bCourses site.