Course Description
Summary
If a plastic bottle could talk, what could it tell us about where it comes from and where it is going? What can we learn about labor, natural resources, extraction and global capitalism by researching and imagining the human and non-human worlds a single object has moved through?
“It-Narratives” are stories inspired by commerce and the circulation of goods that became popular during the industrial revolution in eighteenth-century England. In this course we will enter the realm of object-centered storytelling by reviewing classic Victorian examples of this genre (The Adventures of a Pin, Memoirs of a London Doll, Autobiography of a Joint Stock Company.) We will also look at contemporary examples of this genre, such as Simon Rich’s short story Unprotected and Adam Curtis’ documentary Century of the Self.
The bulk of the course will be devoted to the research and development of new “It-Narratives” inspired by a single object that we will investigate together: a plastic bottle. Our inquiry will begin with science historian Donna Haraway’s work around the idea of object implosion, and lead us to explore sites such as manufacturer’s propaganda, the Pacific Garbage Patch, the history of Vermont’s ‘Bottle Bill,’ and the relationship between the waste industry and the ‘recycling movement.’ For their final project students will develop and workshop an “It-Narrative” inspired by this research in a genre and medium of their choosing.
