The “Thingness” of Things

Tuesdays class had some… interesting discussions about the “thingness” of things, and before you ask if we were all high that day, the answer is no.  Lorraine Daston’s book Things That Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science asked us to “imagine a world without things” (p. 9), something I couldn’t do without thinking about how boring and bland the world would be.  One of my classmates, Meghan, said she kept picturing us bobbing around this expanse of whiteness with no direction and no ability to communicate about…well anything really.  Think about it, if there were no things to talk about,describe, compare, and contrast to other things what would there be to talk about?

Daston also challenged readers to hear what objects, like photograph, can tell us about culture, values, and the rich history embedded within its very creation.  In fact, Daston proposes that “Talkative things instantiate novel, previously unthinkable combinations.  Their ‘thingness’ lends vivacity and reality to new constellations of experience that break the old molds” (p. 24).  Many such objects resist barriers and move across classification boundaries, boundaries that we place them in to give them more meaning.  What would these objects be without us to give meaning to them, to invent them, or re-innovate them?

One way to explore the “thingness” of such things is through a document analysis.  Harper’s magazine  includes these every once in a while in their issues, and we will have to find an object that is somehow related to our research and do the same.  To find an object that embodies associative thinking and give people a chance to glimpse into the cultures we’ve been delving into all semester.  So, here’s to things that talk.