NICHOLS FELLOW 2016-2018
Jillmarie Murphy
Associate Professor of English
Professor Murphy will use the fellowship to design a new course, “The Theory of Things: Objects, Emotions and Ideas,” which will examine humanity’s interest in material culture and the emotional connections that can be made between people and physical objects. According to material culture studies, everyday objects become things when they are misused or exploited, cease to function, or no longer fulfill their original purpose. This course will explore both material and immaterial “things” and how “things” affect people, predominantly marginalized individuals and groups.
This course will ask students to analyze historical discussions of the effects of material culture through a variety of classics and contemporary readings by Karl Marx, George Santayana, Elisabeth Morris, Martin Heidegger, Jean Baudrillard, Bill Brown, Lorraine Daston and Arjun Appadurai. Professor Murphy seeks to have students not only consider tangible objects but move beyond the consideration of the material in order to explore the intangible things that physical objects generate. For instance, human beings desire and value materials things, and in most Western cultures, much emphasis is placed on acquiring objects. While the objects themselves do not create problems, the value individuals place on things may have adverse consequences, particularly for those who do not have the economics means to acquire objects or who are themselves viewed as objects. Indeed, the “desire” to own something and the “value” that is placed on an object are themselves intangible “things” that produce other intangible things – greed, envy, arrogance, violence, deceit, and insecurity, to name a few. Professor Murphy will use lectures, field trips, joint publication, panel discussion and debate, written assignment, guest speakers and independent study research as a final project to help students explore these ideas.
This course is planned to be taught in Spring 2018.