Since I just completely adore the Object Lessons series, what with its minimalist cover design and commitment to taking the materiality of everyday life seriously, I thought I'd link to their website where you can read free mini-object lesson essays. I think this kind of thoughtful and accessible writing is a format we should all consider as burgeoning academics. Not everything has to fit into the narrow box of the research paper, and this series proves that there is an outlet for idiosyncratic expression adjacent to the academy.
http://objectsobjectsobjects.com/essays/
I was also interested by the format of the book and how it presents information and research in a very different manner. The format allowed me to pick and choose chapters in a random order and never felt as if I was missing part of a larger argument, which provides a very different experience than most of the readings we've done in class so far.
ReplyDeleteI was talking to Raphael yesterday and we were discussing how that book (or any book of that series) would be a great book for an undergrad theory class since each chapter seems to represent a unique research methodology and presents the significance and impact of its chosen object (the hashtag) through singular case studies.
I'd also be curious to know more about the production of such a book: did Losh write a larger, more "academic" version of that book and was approached by that press to translate her research into this very specific format, or was the research created around the format of the book.