Stuff

Things make us just as much as we make things. And yet, unlike the study of languages or places, there is no discipline devoted to the study of material things. This book shows why it is time to acknowledge and confront this neglect and how much we can learn from focusing our attention on stuff. The book opens with a critique of the concept of superficiality as applied to clothing. It presents the theories that are required to understand the way we are created by material as well as social relations. It takes us inside the very private worlds of our home possessions and our processes of accommodating. It considers issues of materiality in relation to the media, as well as the implications of such an approach in relation, for example, to poverty. Finally, the book considers objects which we use to define what it is to be alive and how we use objects to cope with death. Based on more than thirty years of research in the Caribbean, India, London and elsewhere, Stuff is nothing less than a manifesto for the study of material culture and a new way of looking at the objects that surround us and make up so much of our social and personal life.

Things make us just as much as we make things. And yet, unlike the study of languages or places, there is no discipline devoted to the study of material things. This book shows why it is time to acknowledge and confront this neglect and how much we can learn from focusing our attention on stuff. The book opens with a critique of the concept of superficiality as applied to clothing. It presents the theories that are required to understand the way we are created by material as well as social relations. It takes us inside the very private worlds of our home possessions and our processes of accommodating. It considers issues of materiality in relation to the media, as well as the implications of such an approach in relation, for example, to poverty. Finally, the book considers objects which we use to define what it is to be alive and how we use objects to cope with death. Based on more than thirty years of research in the Caribbean, India, London and elsewhere, Stuff is nothing less than a manifesto for the study of material culture and a new way of looking at the objects that surround us and make up so much of our social and personal life.

A New York Times Bestseller Acclaimed psychologists Randy Frost and Gail Sketetee's groundbreaking study on the compulsion of hoarding, Stuff invites readers to reevaluate their desire for things" ( Boston Globe ). What possesses someone to save every scrap of paper that's ever come into his home? What compulsions drive a woman like Irene, whose hoarding cost her her marriage? Or Ralph, whose imagined uses for castoff items like leaky old buckets almost lost him his house? Or Jerry and Alvin, wealthy twin bachelors who filled up matching luxury apartments with countless pieces of fine art, not even leaving themselves room to sleep? When Frost and Steketee became the first scientists to study hoarding, they expected to find a few sufferers. Instead, they uncovered an epidemic, treating hundreds of patients and fielding thousands of calls from the families of others, exploring the compulsion through a series of compelling case studies in the vein of Oliver Sacks. With vivid portraits that show us the traits by which you can identify a hoarder -- piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, houses that can be navigated only by following small paths called goat trails, vast piles of paper that the hoarders "churn" but never discard, even collections of animals and garbage -- Frost and Steketee explain the causes and outline the often ineffective treatments for the disorder.They also illuminate the pull that possessions exert on all of us. Whether we're savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, none of us is free of the impulses that drive hoarders to the extremes in which they live. For the six million sufferers, their relatives and friends, and all the rest of us with complicated relationships to our things, Stuff answers the question of what happens when our stuff starts to own us.

A New York Times Bestseller Acclaimed psychologists Randy Frost and Gail Sketetee's groundbreaking study on the compulsion of hoarding, Stuff invites readers to reevaluate their desire for things" ( Boston Globe ). What possesses someone to save every scrap of paper that's ever come into his home? What compulsions drive a woman like Irene, whose hoarding cost her her marriage? Or Ralph, whose imagined uses for castoff items like leaky old buckets almost lost him his house? Or Jerry and Alvin, wealthy twin bachelors who filled up matching luxury apartments with countless pieces of fine art, not even leaving themselves room to sleep? When Frost and Steketee became the first scientists to study hoarding, they expected to find a few sufferers. Instead, they uncovered an epidemic, treating hundreds of patients and fielding thousands of calls from the families of others, exploring the compulsion through a series of compelling case studies in the vein of Oliver Sacks. With vivid portraits that show us the traits by which you can identify a hoarder -- piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, houses that can be navigated only by following small paths called goat trails, vast piles of paper that the hoarders "churn" but never discard, even collections of animals and garbage -- Frost and Steketee explain the causes and outline the often ineffective treatments for the disorder.They also illuminate the pull that possessions exert on all of us. Whether we're savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, none of us is free of the impulses that drive hoarders to the extremes in which they live. For the six million sufferers, their relatives and friends, and all the rest of us with complicated relationships to our things, Stuff answers the question of what happens when our stuff starts to own us.

Du er hvad du køber. Eller, sådan føles det i hvert fald ofte. Siden ting, produkter og ejendele har så stor betydning for vores liv, er det ret besynderligt at der ikke er en decideret disciplin tilegnet studiet af materielle ting. "Stuff" viser hvor meget vi kan lære af at studere tingene omkring os og præsenterer de teorier, som er nødvendige at anvende for at forstå sammenhængen mellem materialitet og identitetsdannelse. "Stuff" er på én gang et manifest for studiet af vor samtids materielle kultur og en præsentation af en øjenåbnende ny måde at anskue objekter og ting, der omringer os og har indflydelse på vores sociale og private liv.

Du er hvad du køber. Eller, sådan føles det i hvert fald ofte. Siden ting, produkter og ejendele har så stor betydning for vores liv, er det ret besynderligt at der ikke er en decideret disciplin tilegnet studiet af materielle ting. "Stuff" viser hvor meget vi kan lære af at studere tingene omkring os og præsenterer de teorier, som er nødvendige at anvende for at forstå sammenhængen mellem materialitet og identitetsdannelse. "Stuff" er på én gang et manifest for studiet af vor samtids materielle kultur og en præsentation af en øjenåbnende ny måde at anskue objekter og ting, der omringer os og har indflydelse på vores sociale og private liv.