Object Lessons

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.When you are born, the first thing you do is scream. Be it a response to fear, anger, sadness, or happiness, the scream is a declaration of being alive. The metal vocalist cupping the microphone blares out a deafeningly harsh scream. The drill instructor screams out commands to their soldiers. And then there’s the bloodcurdling screams we know from horror films. A scream has many meanings, but it is an instinctive and reflexive action that, at its core, reveals raw emotion.Investigating popular and alternative cultures, art, and science, Michael J. Seidlinger tracks the resonance of the scream across media and literature and in his own voice. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic .

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.What can underground pipes tell us about human eating habits and the spread or containment of disease, such as COVID-19? Why are sewers spitting out plastic and trash into waterways around the world? How are clogs getting gnarlier and more numerous? Jessica Leigh Hester leads readers through the past, present, and future of the system humans have created to deal with our own waste and argues that sewers can be seen as a mirror to the world above at a time when our behaviors are drastically reshaping the environment for the worse. Sifting through the muck offers a fresh way to approach questions about urbanization, public health, infrastructure, ecology, sustainability, and consumerism― and what we value. Without understanding sewers, any attempt to steward the future is incomplete. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic .

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.The haunted doll has long been a trope in horror movies, but like many fears, there is some truth at its heart. Dolls are possessed―by our aspirations. They're commonly used as a tool to teach mothering to young girls, but more often they are avatars of the idealized feminine self. (The word "doll" even acts as shorthand for a desirable woman.) They instruct girls what to strive for in society, reinforcing dominant patriarchal, heteronormative, white views around class, bodies, history, and celebrity, in insidious ways. Girls’ dolls occupy the opposite space of boys’ action figures, which represent masculinity, authority, warfare, and conflict. By analyzing dolls from 17th century Japanese Hinamatsuri festivals, to the ‘80s American Girl Dolls, and even to today’s bitmoji, “Doll” reveals how the objects society encourages us to play with as girls shape the women we become.Object Le

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. We are born into blankets. They keep us alive and they cover us in death. We pull and tug on

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.It towers over us and yet fades into background. Its lifespan outstrips ours, and yet its wisd

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.Hair, a primary marker of our mammalian nature, is a remarkably powerful indicator of economic

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.You might think that its name says it all. A bookshelf is just that - a shelf for books. It's

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.No matter how much you fight against it, dust pervades everything. It gathers in even layers,

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.What is silence? In a series of short meditations, novelist and playwright John Biguenet consi

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.It is an object that has been responsible for a greater improvement in human diet and longevit

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.Though we try to imagine otherwise, waste is every object, plus time. Whatever else an object

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.The phone booth exists as a memory to those over thirty, and as a strange, curious, and dysfun

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.Pause and look, and you will see that you are surrounded by glass: light reflects off and refr

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.During the breakdown of an unhappy marriage, writer Joanna Walsh got a job as a hotel reviewer