Thing Theory in Literary Studies
That things capture our imagination is hardly news. As Andrew Cole wrote in a 2016 issue of October, "materialism is as old as the hills." Cole claims that new approaches to studying things allow us to find similarities where we have too often found difference, and that this method dates back at least to Hegel and Marx. The study of matter has proceeded under a number of names: dialectical materialism, material culture studies, and, more recently, vibrant materialism, and object-oriented ontology. The scope of such studies has likewise been expansive, ranging from the sub-atomic to the galactic, from Lucretius to Latour.
MoreHow do the literary, visual, and plastic arts fashion questions about the object world and our relation to it?
The treatment of the military subject in Shakespeare’s Roman plays complicates early modern cultural understandings of the material aspects of militant nostalgia. Shakespeare inherits a partial and objectified Roman military figure linked to trophies and armor, and this figure negotiates the early modern English playgoer's relationship to his glorious, unattainable Roman past.
The fictional foods of climate novels emphasize the everyday violence of dwelling in crisis.