Things (A Critical Inquiry Book) [Hardcover]

Bill Brown (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226076113 | ISBN-13: 978-0226076119 | Publication Date: April 1, 2004 | Edition: 1

This book is an invitation to think about why children chew pencils; why we talk to our cars, our refrigerators, our computers; rosary beads and worry beads; Cuban cigars; why we no longer wear hats that we can tip to one another and why we don't seem to long to; what has been described as bourgeois longing. It is an invitation to think about the fetishism of daily life in different times and in different cultures. It is an invitation to rethink several topics of critical inquiry--camp, collage, primitivism, consumer culture, museum culture, the aesthetic object, still life, "things as they are," Renaissance wonders, "the thing itself"--within the rubric of "things," not in an effort to foreclose the question of what sort of things these seem to be, but rather to suggest new questions about how objects produce subjects, about the phenomenology of the material everyday, about the secret life of things.

Based on an award-winning special issue of the journal Critical Inquiry, Things features eighteen thought-evoking essays by contributors including Bill Brown, Matthew L. Jones, Bruno Latour, W. J. T. Mitchell, Jessica Riskin, Jeffrey T. Schnapp, Peter Schwenger, Charity Scribner, and Alan Trachtenberg.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

This book is an invitation to think about why children chew pencils; why we talk to our cars, our refrigerators, our computers; rosary beads and worry beads; Cuban cigars; why we no longer wear hats that we can tip to one another and why we don't seem to long to; what has been described as bourgeois longing. It is an invitation to think about the fetishism of daily life in different times and in different cultures. It is an invitation to rethink several topics of critical inquiry--camp, collage, primitivism, consumer culture, museum culture, the aesthetic object, still life, "things as they are," Renaissance wonders, "the thing itself"--within the rubric of "things," not in an effort to foreclose the question of what sort of things these seem to be, but rather to suggest new questions about how objects produce subjects, about the phenomenology of the material everyday, about the secret life of things.

Based on an award-winning special issue of the journal Critical Inquiry, Things features eighteen thought-evoking essays by contributors including Bill Brown, Matthew L. Jones, Bruno Latour, W. J. T. Mitchell, Jessica Riskin, Jeffrey T. Schnapp, Peter Schwenger, Charity Scribner, and Alan Trachtenberg.

About the Author

Bill Brown is a professor of English at the University of Chicago, coeditor of Critical Inquiry and author of A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 380 pages
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press; 1 edition (April 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226076113
• ISBN-13: 978-0226076119
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,079,808 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Read For Understanding How Museums Function, January 26, 2009

By 

Peggy F. Aarlien "PFA" (Colorado Springs) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Things (A Critical Inquiry Book) (Hardcover)

I have found only a few scholarly materials such as Bill Brown's book "Things" address the topic to what truly shapes the museum experience. Brown brings forth in his argument that at the core of the museum experience lies the powerful and evolving relationship between an object and the visitor--an experience that is indeed independent of the museum historiography. As simple and self-evident that it may appear, many scholars have only made reference to the uniqueness of a space that is restricted solely between an object that is displayed in an exhibition and the visitor who volunteers a self-sense investment. However, few scholars like Brown actually present their argument in a head-on theory about the power of objects that affect personal involvements and in turn, affect the museums' cultural authority. For that reason alone, this is a must read for anyone who works with museums as to help understand and configure truly where the power of the museum setting experience lies--a human investment regardless of how museum have changed over time.