Daniel Carranza (Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures)
First-Year Seminar 64S 4 credits Enrollment: Limited to 12
CANVAS SITE
If trees could speak, what would they say? How does that annoying fly buzzing around perceive the room you both inhabit – perceive you? And what kind of traumatic shock could transform you into a mute tree? Or lead you to wake up and discover you have become an insect?
In this seminar, we will explore how living things undergo metamorphosis in mythic narratives, poetry, and visual art. How does the Western mythic tradition from Ovid to Kafka imagine such jarring, even violent, self-transformations? In what ways do organisms already metamorphose in remarkable ways that defy observation? Do the environments of different species appear radically different to each? And how might we make sense of this interplay between radical transformation and obstinate persistence in natural and cultural ‘environments’ alike?
Note: The seminar will involve excursions that take advantage of ‘on-site’ resources in proximity to campus, e.g. observing glass flowers and rotting fruit at the Harvard Museum of Natural History and communing with categorized trees at the Arnold Arboretum.