Metaphors are generated from matter and things – good as gold, feet of clay, thick as a brick, hitting a brick wall—and the images they create, in turn, shapes how we see the material world. This transference of images from word to material and back again gives our imagination its juice. It can also set the horizon on what is possible—such as our ability to question what is set in stone, what ideas can bear fruit, and whether we dismiss a point as immaterial. This course approaches material metaphors in two ways: a) as creating portraits of time and place and b) as zones of unstable energy with the potential of being powerful and inventive resources. We will work through a set of metaphor-material formations (such as carbon, gold, clay, stone, plastic, cotton) to examine the ways in which they have influenced such ideas and experiences as the human senses, toxicity, sustainability, invasiveness and nativity, value, malleability, stability, migration, and human-nonhuman relationships. We will do this through historical, literary and critical texts as well as explorations in art and craft. The course especially encourages students to explore the metaphors tied to the media and materials of their own practices (thread, oil, silicon, resin, paper, water) to see how materials and metaphors speak back to each other.