This course explores the ways in which objects and material culture embody personal narrative. Moving back and forth from ephemeral traces of events and experiences to the culturally invested luxury goods that create legacy to the objects that facilitate daily life, this class will use, as its primary references, examples that draw from queer and African American cultures to underscore the potential of objects to tell the stories that not only reflect majority traditions and experiences but those of the disenfranchised, the details of whose lives are often obscured. In addition to readings that will provide background for class discussion, student will be asked to play the roles of detectives, archeologists, and curators at various sites around New York City. Each student will also be asked to create an annotated material record that reveals the public and private lives of one individual. That record may consist of texts, objects or any variety of media chosen or designed by the student. This blogs serves as an archive for the work done in the context of this course and related materials that become relevant to this exploration.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

What Objects Tell The Story of Your Life?



This post on the NYT Blog for education brings awareness to the vast amount of information inherit in objects people value for personal reasons. The piece links back to the NYT review on Sam Roberts essay "Object Lessons in History" and invites students to review, analyze and comment in the feed below. This was an interesting approach offered to the masses on forming opinions around the notions of artifacts, their personal value and how that is translated on a social platform for a wider array of people at large.


- Kevin Houlahan



link: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/what-objects-tell-the-story-of-your-life/
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