Your topic immediately made me think of two things: disposable cameras and condoms - which is interesting, because the former is the disposable version of an object that's normally used many times, while the latter is meant to be used only once.
Disposable makes me think of gangster euphemisms for killing people, having to dispose of the bodies, all that.
Also, it'd be interesting to see at what price point and level of chintziness something starts being marketed as disposable. Because technically, everything is disposable, unless it's really big. Like an elephant might be tough, but not really that tough. Anyway, it's a pretty arbitrary distinction to make, since it's nothing having to do with the object itself, just how much people value having that object stick around, or how wasteful it would be to dispose of cloth diapers, for example.
And how comfortable are we with having disposable things be edible, and therefore disposable. I guess if you're in diapers, it ends up in the same place.
The topic disposable makes me think of the convenience we see in having something temporary and able to be disgarded quickly. However, what this does idea has done to our environment as well as the temporary object could be interesting to explore. I think it's important to realize how the disposable is actually valued. -Kristen
I have been trying to think of situations that have disposable "twins": i.e. situations that ordinarily require a specific set of reusable objects but which have an analogous "disposable" situation. The only (half-) example I have been able to think of so far is everyday meals vs meals on airplanes, though I feel like there are more instances of this that I just can't think of right now. The subject definitely has a different relationship with the food and the experience as a whole when the situation is mediated by disposable implements.
Commodities, fetishes, souvenirs, relics, rubbish. What theories help us think about things? In this course we will read Victorian travelers on West African "fetish," Michael Taussig on his imagined cocaine museum, Susan Stewart on longing and souvenirs, Freud on shiny noses, Marx on tables, Annette Weiner on the similarities between gift and commodity exchange, Mary Douglas on dirt, D.W. Winnicott on string, and Arjun Appadurai on the idea of the social lives of things. The singularization of things, the ways in which history and memory are stored in real and imagined objects, the commodification of the human body, the animation of the inanimate, utopian recycling, gleaning, found objects as art and craft: we will consider a broad range of theoretical issues in our readings and in projects that put them to quirky use.
6 comments:
This article on Katrina looks like an interesting resource:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/college_literature/v033/33.3giroux.pdf
Hollis
Your topic immediately made me think of two things: disposable cameras and condoms - which is interesting, because the former is the disposable version of an object that's normally used many times, while the latter is meant to be used only once.
Nupur
I think of disposable diapers as the iconic representation of the disposable and its promises of improved household sanitation.
hans
Disposable makes me think of gangster euphemisms for killing people, having to dispose of the bodies, all that.
Also, it'd be interesting to see at what price point and level of chintziness something starts being marketed as disposable. Because technically, everything is disposable, unless it's really big. Like an elephant might be tough, but not really that tough. Anyway, it's a pretty arbitrary distinction to make, since it's nothing having to do with the object itself, just how much people value having that object stick around, or how wasteful it would be to dispose of cloth diapers, for example.
And how comfortable are we with having disposable things be edible, and therefore disposable. I guess if you're in diapers, it ends up in the same place.
The topic disposable makes me think of the convenience we see in having something temporary and able to be disgarded quickly. However, what this does idea has done to our environment as well as the temporary object could be interesting to explore. I think it's important to realize how the disposable is actually valued.
-Kristen
I have been trying to think of situations that have disposable "twins": i.e. situations that ordinarily require a specific set of reusable objects but which have an analogous "disposable" situation. The only (half-) example I have been able to think of so far is everyday meals vs meals on airplanes, though I feel like there are more instances of this that I just can't think of right now. The subject definitely has a different relationship with the food and the experience as a whole when the situation is mediated by disposable implements.
--Nicole
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