How might we understand the enduring interest that material culture and the world of things holds for the humanities and social sciences? Tracking the object/thing distinction as it appears in the work of Heidegger and Lacan, Bill Brown’s new book, Other Things, focuses on the thingness disclosed by the literary and artistic works of people such as Virginia Woolf, Man Ray, Spike Lee and Don DeLillo. Combining history and literature, criticism and theory, Other Things provides a new way of understanding the inanimate object world and the place of the human within it, encouraging us to think anew about what we mean by materiality itself.
Professor Brown will be introduced by 3CT co-director Professor Lisa Wedeen. 3CT Fellow Dipesh Chakrabarty will offer a brief commentary on the text.
Bill Brown is the Karla Scherer Distinguished Service Professor in American Culture and is a founding fellow of 3CT. A long-time editor of Critical Inquiry, Prof. Brown also serves as Deputy Dean in the Humanities Division and Deputy Provost in the Arts Development Program.
This event is co-sponsored by the Seminary Co-op Bookstore.
