Studies in East-West Literary Relations
The Novel and Material Culture
In this seminar, we will examine the multiple ways in which anthropologists, art historians, historians and sociologists as well as scholars of literature have related the interpretation of objects to the interpretation of texts. Topics include the possibilities and limitations of the metaphorical relation of objects and texts, concerns regarding the influence of commodity and gift relations on bonds of human relation, the development of conceptions of intellectual property and of an interest in the idea as thing, the aestheticization of waste. Theoretical writings focus on theories of the gift, the fetish, consumption, and commoditization. Fictional texts include works by James, Twain, Dreiser, Zola, Flaubert, Morrison, Feng Menglong, Li Yu and Cao Xueqin.