History
Object Lesson
Object Lesson
A central theme of Nicolas Proctor's American Environmental History course is the relationship between people and their environment. One of the historical trends the course examines is the increasing distance between people and environmental processes - including manufacturing. Today, people tend to acquire and consume objects that are products of distant industrial processes. Numerous objects populate our lives, but we rarely comprehend their meanings.
To further explore this issue, the class reads Taking Things Seriously, a book by Joshua Glenn and Carol Hayes, which examines the idiosyncratic relationships people forge between objects and meaning. As part of this discussion, the members of the class complete the following assignment.
Assignment Objectives
1. To reacquaint us with objects that we possess.
2. To introduce us to the ways that others understand their relationship with objects.
The Process
1. Select an object that you endow with meaning. Ideally, this should be like many of the objects in Taking Things Seriously - others might consider it junk, but you love it.
2. Photograph it.
3. Write a short essay explaining the meaning that you attribute to it.
The Product
After finishing this assignment, the results are posted online
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