Time Is Money: Capitalism and Temporality
CHUM 322
Fall 2015 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
ENGL 315, AMST 356, HIST 273 |
What does it mean for us to live by the clock? And how has the clock come to command our sense of time? To explore these and related questions, in this interdisciplinary, reading-intensive seminar, we will work from two core premises: the quality of temporality--or, how we inhabit, perceive, and regulate time--has changed over the course of history (itself a term we will need to unpack), and how those changes have corresponded to fluctuations in the rate and rhythm of global capitalism. Centering our inquiry in the United States and beginning in the antebellum South, we will toggle between different spatio-temporal scales and examine a range of case studies, from the cotton plantations of the 1830s and the futures markets of the 1880s, to the shopping malls of the 1960s and the child-care centers of the 1980s. Throughout, we will analyze time as an instrument of domination and expropriation and, thus, of capital accumulation, but also as a means of disruption and interruption and, thus, of opposition, whether it is "seized" along an assembly line or in a public square, or within the structure of a novel. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA CHUM |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST) |
Major Readings:
Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton, CARTOGRAPHIES OF TIME: A HISTORY OF THE TIMELINE
Mark M. Smith, MASTERED BY THE CLOCK: TIME, SLAVERY, AND FREEDOM IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, THE RAILWAY JOURNEY: THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF TIME AND SPACE IN THE 19TH CENTURY
Andy Warhol, THE PHILOSOPHY OF ANDY WARHOL
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, THE RUINS OF DETROIT
Ed Park, PERSONAL DAYS
Chauncey Hare, THIS WAS CORPORATE AMERICA
Colson Whitehead, ZONE ONE
Richard Powers, GAIN
As well as essays and stories by David Harvey, Fredric Jameson, Edith Wharton, Michael Zakim, Herman Melville, Karl Marx, Elspeth Brown, W. E. B. Du Bois, Sigfried Giedion, John McPhee, Susan Sontag, Barbara Ehrenreich, and others; and five films.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Written assignments will include: a short essay (5 pages) on a keyword from the nineteenth century; and a long essay (15 pages) annotating a timeline of the student's design, on a topic of the student's choice (with "timeline" interpreted as linearly or non-linearly as the student sees fit). Students will also be expected to attend several lectures at the Center for the Humanities on Mondays at 4:30pm. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
To apply to participate in the seminar, students must submit a brief statement of roughly 300 words defining the concept of "time." This may take a variety of forms, ranging from a discussion of a particular historical event or phenomenon, to an analysis of a quote or image, to an anecdote or personal reflection. The aim should be to convey both an interest in the topic of the seminar and an aptitude for thinking creatively and expansively.
This seminar will contribute to the English major American Literature concentration. |
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