First-Year Research Seminar: The Surreal Thing

Semester and Year	SP 2011
Course Number	FIRST-UG715
Section	001
Instructor	Eugene Vydrin
Days	Mon,Wed
Time	3:30 PM - 4:45 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement

Description

The Surrealist movement sought to transform the self and the world, each one by way of the other. The world was to be remodeled in the image of the liberated psyche, alienation and repression overcome by a passionate exchange between the self and its environment. Inside and outside would continually change places as the psyche discovered its own desires written in the cipher of material things and assimilated these fragments of reality into its language of dreams. Inanimate objects would come to life, speaking the language of the self, while the self would take its place among them as a fellow thing of the world. This class will explore Surrealism as a method of perceiving the material world and a model for living in it. Students will write essays based on close readings of literary and theoretical texts, as well as a research essay. Readings may include texts by Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Walter Benjamin, Rosalind Krauss, Mary Ann Caws, Fredric Jameson, and James Clifford; poetry and prose by André Breton, Louis Aragon, Aimé Césaire, Claude Cahun, Djuna Barnes, Frank O'Hara, and John Ashbery.

Course Type

First-Year Program: Research Seminars (FIRST-UG)