Object Studies - by Cyrus Mulready (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Object Studies: Introductions to Material Culture is a textbook that introduces students to an interdisciplinary approach to material cultural study. This text helps reveal how everyday objects from pens and coffee cups to our most cherished keepsakes help define our collective histories and personal narratives. Object Studies is organized around accessible and engaging chapters on objects with "model essays" that present original projects designed to engage students with a series of concepts and research activities. Each will demonstrate a key methodology tied to specific learning outcomes, but all chapters will be intertwined in their attention to the project of developing the core skills of "object studies" careful viewing, writing detailed descriptions, setting out and testing research hypotheses, and telling stories through material artifacts. Aimed towards undergraduate students taking courses in material culture as well as postgraduate students embarking on independent research projects these chapter "studies" are practically oriented and demonstrate research projects that can be undertaken either in a course or even through personal study. Chapters in Object Studies conclude with research questions, suggestions on methodology, and a discursive bibliography designed to help students pursue their own projects based on these examples.

From the Back Cover

Object Studies: Introductions to Material Culture is a textbook that introduces students to an interdisciplinary approach to material cultural study. It reveals how everyday objects from pens and coffee cups to our most cherished keepsakes help define our collective histories and personal narratives. Object Studies is organized around accessible and engaging chapters on objects with "model essays" that present original projects designed to engage students with a series of concepts and research activities. Each chapter demonstrates a key methodology tied to specific learning outcomes, but all are intertwined in their attention to developing the core skills of "object studies" careful viewing, writing detailed descriptions, setting out and testing research hypotheses, and telling stories through material artifacts. Aimed towards undergraduate students taking courses in material culture as well as postgraduate students embarking on independent research projects, these chapter "studies" are practically oriented and demonstrate research projects that can be undertaken either in a course or through personal study. Object Studies includes research questions, suggestions on methodology, and discursive bibliographies designed to help students pursue their own projects

"This is a remarkable book, thoughtful, engaging, attentive, surprising, and fun. It is brilliantly designed as a textbook, for students and for teachers interested in a new field of study that this book will help bring into being--Object Studies. But it might usefully and enjoyably be read by anyone who wants to think about the objects we make, buy, live with, desire, ignore, discard, break, and lose; that is, it is a book at least as much about who we are as it is about what they are, linking objects to their histories and thus to our own."

--David Scott Kastan, George M. Bodman Professor of English, Yale University

Review Quotes

"Due to its instructive, easily replicable nature, Object Studies is particularly suited for an audience of teachers and students of material culture, broadly speaking. This book is an especially useful blueprint for educators wishing to incorporate material studies into their lessons ... . Mulready tactfully presents the book's chapters in a way that initially encourages an inward connection to material culture and eventually works outward." (Caroline Hackett, H-Net Reviews, h-net.org, December, 2024)

About the Author

Cyrus Mulready is Associate Professor of English at the State University of New York at New Paltz, where he teaches courses on book history, material culture, Shakespeare, and early British literature. He has published on Shakespeare, book history, and pedagogy, and was the 2017 recipient of the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching.