Instructor: Robert L. Frost, 201 Ten Broeck; 442-4810 (ofc.), 459-8364 (home)
Time/Place: Tuesdays, 5:45-7:45 Ten Broeck Hall basement.
Office Hours: Wed. 3:00-4:30, Thurs. 3:30-5:30, and by appointment.

course objectives:
The objects of everyday life throughout history have led strange lives of their own. Often generated by complicated contexts and social or interpersonal conflicts, once implanted in quotidian activities, they become naturalized or invisible--some call their meanings "closed"--and their controversial pasts become quietly hidden. These objects reflect and reproduce the societies that construct them and symbolic and real battles over their shape and meaning X-ray the structures of gender, class, race, and power and in many ways replicate those very same social structures.

This course shall permit us to study the secret, hidden lives of the objects of everyday life. We shall use such concepts as the cultural construction of meanings, the mobilization of resources for enforcing designs and meanings, and the modes through which designs, meanings, and uses are implemented. In our decodings, we will peel back the veils of habit and power that have served to regularize and make invisible the origins of objects. In our investigations, we shall use approaches from material culture studies, economic analysis, technology studies, anthropology, social history, design analysis, and literary theory.

course readings:
Robert Blair St. George, Material Life in America
Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things
Joseph J. Corn, ed., Imagining Tomorrow
Steven Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man
--a selection of articles available in the Ten Broeck second floor public area

assignments:
The key part of this course is to write the biography of an object of your choice. Such objects can be grand, such as the Eiffel Tower, or small, such as a wooden cooking spoon. This paper will be based on original research and (more importantly) independent conceptualization and it will be from 3,000-5,000 words, or about 15 pages. In preparation for the paper, you will develop interim written work, from research proposals to outlines. You will also write a book review on one of the books you use in your major paper. Finally, you will be asked to give an informal presentation of your work. Depending on when you are scheduled for presenting your material, you will be asked to discuss the research process, conceptual agendas, or the actual content of your work and its conclusions.

Presentations will be worth 10% of the grade, book reviews will be worth 20%, proposals will be worth 15%, outlines worth 15%, and the paper worth 40%. Due dates are as follows:
Research proposals: 16 February
Book reviews: 9 March
Outlines: 23 March
Major papers: 20 April

a note on academic honesty:
Whatever your attitudes toward material property, as future mental workers, you must respect intellectual property. Plagiarism (the claim that the ideas of another author are your own) and cheating are severe crimes and will be met with a failing grade. While you are required to consult written sources and encouraged to work with other students, you are expected to do so with high standards of personal honesty and integrity.

Week 2 (January 26): Course Introduction.
Topics: Decoding objects: basic approaches.

Week 3 (February 2): Inventing Man and the Problems of Just Measurement
Topics: The pitfalls of misdesignation; ideology inscribed in objects.
Assignments: Gould, first half.

Week 4 (February 9): Inventing Women and Others
Topics: Encoding social agendas in science.
Assignments: Gould, second half, Hayles on gender and fluid mechanics.

Week 5 (February 16): The Techniques and Objects of Material Culture Studies
Topics: Introduction to material culture analysis.
Assignments: St-George, selections TBA.

Week 6 (February 23): More on Material Culture Studies
Topics: Limits of traditional material culture approaches, techniques of literary analysis.
Assignments: St-George, selections TBA, Pfaffenberger on PCs, Frost on semiotech.

Week 7 (March 2): Function, Utility, and the Politics of Design
Topics: Whose social agenda is inscribed in objects; is funtionality a useful category of analysis?
Assignments: Norman, entire.

Week 8 (March 9): Gendered Objects
Topics: Inventing users and objects, constructing womanhood.
Assignments: Coffin on sewing machines, Frost on washing machines, Furlough on Club Med.

Week 9 (March 16): Objects for Display
Topics: Objects as social, cultural, and political statements.
Assignments: Michael Smith on the space program, Levin on the Eiffel Tower, Kihlstedt (in Corn volume) on world's fairs, Dan Sherman on WW1 monuments.

Week 10 (March 23): Materials, Methods, Systems, and Technical Dependencies
Topics: How objects are materially enmeshed.
Assignments: Meikle (in Corn) on plastics, Frost on electrical systems, Hughes on electrical systems, Horrigan (in Corn) on housing, Cowan on Consumerism.

Week 11 (March 30): Anthropological Approaches.
Topics: Contributions from anthropology.
Assignments: Geertz on Balinese cockfights, Latour on door closers, Mary Ryan on American parades, Biersack on Geertz.

Week 12 (April 13): High Tech and Work
Topics: The ideology of progress inscribed in objects and the consequences for labor.
Assignments: Douglas (in Corn) on radio, Segal on utopianism, Del Sesto (in Corn) on nukes, Staudenmaier on "progress talk," Zeitlin on labor.

Week 13 (April 20): Doing the History of Things
Topics: Open discussion on problems raised.
Assignments: none: do your papers.

Week 14 (April 27): Wrap-Up: Is Total History Possible?
Topics: Finish presentations, attempting synthesis.
Assignments: Frost, "Mechanical Dreams."