In the last ten years the humanities has become obsessed with stuff – things, ephemera, paraphernalia and possessions. Writer and critic Brian Dillon speaks to Steven Connor, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London, about the  curious magic of everyday things.

Brian Dillon: It seems as if, in recent years, and after a couple of decades of academia in general and the humanities in particular being concerned with language – with structures of meaning, whether verbal or based on ideas taken from linguistics, such as reading images through linguistics, all of this going under the broad name of semiotics and structuralism and so on – it seems that after some decades of that the humanities now seem to be obsessed with things, by objects, by something that has become known as ‘thing studies’ [sometimes thing theory, material culture or object studies].

– See more at: http://podacademy.org/podcasts/a-philosophy-of-everyday-things/#sthash.Kv8n6ypK.dpuf

In the last ten years the humanities has become obsessed with stuff – things, ephemera, paraphernalia and possessions. Writer and critic Brian Dillon speaks to Steven Connor, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London, about the  curious magic of everyday things.

Brian Dillon: It seems as if, in recent years, and after a couple of decades of academia in general and the humanities in particular being concerned with language – with structures of meaning, whether verbal or based on ideas taken from linguistics, such as reading images through linguistics, all of this going under the broad name of semiotics and structuralism and so on – it seems that after some decades of that the humanities now seem to be obsessed with things, by objects, by something that has become known as ‘thing studies’ [sometimes thing theory, material culture or object studies].

– See more at: http://podacademy.org/podcasts/a-philosophy-of-everyday-things/#sthash.Kv8n6ypK.dpuf

In the last ten years the humanities has become obsessed with stuff – things, ephemera, paraphernalia and possessions. Writer and critic Brian Dillon speaks to Steven Connor, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London, about the  curious magic of everyday things.

Brian Dillon: It seems as if, in recent years, and after a couple of decades of academia in general and the humanities in particular being concerned with language – with structures of meaning, whether verbal or based on ideas taken from linguistics, such as reading images through linguistics, all of this going under the broad name of semiotics and structuralism and so on – it seems that after some decades of that the humanities now seem to be obsessed with things, by objects, by something that has become known as ‘thing studies’ [sometimes thing theory, material culture or object studies].

– See more at: http://podacademy.org/podcasts/a-philosophy-of-everyday-things/#sthash.xvSZWx3P.dpuf

In the last ten years the humanities has become obsessed with stuff – things, ephemera, paraphernalia and possessions. Writer and critic Brian Dillon speaks to Steven Connor, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London, about the  curious magic of everyday things.

Brian Dillon: It seems as if, in recent years, and after a couple of decades of academia in general and the humanities in particular being concerned with language – with structures of meaning, whether verbal or based on ideas taken from linguistics, such as reading images through linguistics, all of this going under the broad name of semiotics and structuralism and so on – it seems that after some decades of that the humanities now seem to be obsessed with things, by objects, by something that has become known as ‘thing studies’ [sometimes thing theory, material culture or object studies].

– See more at: http://podacademy.org/podcasts/a-philosophy-of-everyday-things/#sthash.xvSZWx3P.dpuf

In the last ten years the humanities has become obsessed with stuff – things, ephemera, paraphernalia and possessions. Writer and critic Brian Dillon speaks to Steven Connor, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London, about the  curious magic of everyday things.

Brian Dillon: It seems as if, in recent years, and after a couple of decades of academia in general and the humanities in particular being concerned with language – with structures of meaning, whether verbal or based on ideas taken from linguistics, such as reading images through linguistics, all of this going under the broad name of semiotics and structuralism and so on – it seems that after some decades of that the humanities now seem to be obsessed with things, by objects, by something that has become known as ‘thing studies’ [sometimes thing theory, material culture or object studies].

– See more at: http://podacademy.org/podcasts/a-philosophy-of-everyday-things/#sthash.xvSZWx3P.dpuf

In the last ten years the humanities has become obsessed with stuff – things, ephemera, paraphernalia and possessions. Writer and critic Brian Dillon speaks to Steven Connor, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London, about the  curious magic of everyday things.

Brian Dillon: It seems as if, in recent years, and after a couple of decades of academia in general and the humanities in particular being concerned with language – with structures of meaning, whether verbal or based on ideas taken from linguistics, such as reading images through linguistics, all of this going under the broad name of semiotics and structuralism and so on – it seems that after some decades of that the humanities now seem to be obsessed with things, by objects, by something that has become known as ‘thing studies’ [sometimes thing theory, material culture or object studies].

– See more at: http://podacademy.org/podcasts/a-philosophy-of-everyday-things/#sthash.xvSZWx3P.dpuf

In the last ten years the humanities has become obsessed with stuff – things, ephemera, paraphernalia and possessions. Writer and critic Brian Dillon speaks to Steven Connor, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London, about the  curious magic of everyday things.

Brian Dillon: It seems as if, in recent years, and after a couple of decades of academia in general and the humanities in particular being concerned with language – with structures of meaning, whether verbal or based on ideas taken from linguistics, such as reading images through linguistics, all of this going under the broad name of semiotics and structuralism and so on – it seems that after some decades of that the humanities now seem to be obsessed with things, by objects, by something that has become known as ‘thing studies’ [sometimes thing theory, material culture or object studies].

– See more at: http://podacademy.org/podcasts/a-philosophy-of-everyday-things/#sthash.xvSZWx3P.dpuf

In the last ten years the humanities has become obsessed with stuff – things, ephemera, paraphernalia and possessions. Writer and critic Brian Dillon speaks to Steven Connor, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London, about the  curious magic of everyday things.

Brian Dillon: It seems as if, in recent years, and after a couple of decades of academia in general and the humanities in particular being concerned with language – with structures of meaning, whether verbal or based on ideas taken from linguistics, such as reading images through linguistics, all of this going under the broad name of semiotics and structuralism and so on – it seems that after some decades of that the humanities now seem to be obsessed with things, by objects, by something that has become known as ‘thing studies’ [sometimes thing theory, material culture or object studies]. We find this with scholars like Sherry Turkle, who writes on the meaning of contemporary technology, or even popular successors like Neil MacGregor’s A History of the World in 100 Objects, the book based around the British Museum collection. Things seem to be in the air.

– See more at: http://podacademy.org/podcasts/a-philosophy-of-everyday-things/#sthash.xvSZWx3P.dpuf

In the last ten years the humanities has become obsessed with stuff – things, ephemera, paraphernalia and possessions. Writer and critic Brian Dillon speaks to Steven Connor, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London, about the  curious magic of everyday things.

Brian Dillon: It seems as if, in recent years, and after a couple of decades of academia in general and the humanities in particular being concerned with language – with structures of meaning, whether verbal or based on ideas taken from linguistics, such as reading images through linguistics, all of this going under the broad name of semiotics and structuralism and so on – it seems that after some decades of that the humanities now seem to be obsessed with things, by objects, by something that has become known as ‘thing studies’ [sometimes thing theory, material culture or object studies]. We find this with scholars like Sherry Turkle, who writes on the meaning of contemporary technology, or even popular successors like Neil MacGregor’s A History of the World in 100 Objects, the book based around the British Museum collection. Things seem to be in the air.

– See more at: http://podacademy.org/podcasts/a-philosophy-of-everyday-things/#sthash.xvSZWx3P.dpuf

In the last ten years the humanities has become obsessed with stuff – things, ephemera, paraphernalia and possessions. Writer and critic Brian Dillon speaks to Steven Connor, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London, about the  curious magic of everyday things.

Brian Dillon: It seems as if, in recent years, and after a couple of decades of academia in general and the humanities in particular being concerned with language – with structures of meaning, whether verbal or based on ideas taken from linguistics, such as reading images through linguistics, all of this going under the broad name of semiotics and structuralism and so on – it seems that after some decades of that the humanities now seem to be obsessed with things, by objects, by something that has become known as ‘thing studies’ [sometimes thing theory, material culture or object studies]. We find this with scholars like Sherry Turkle, who writes on the meaning of contemporary technology, or even popular successors like Neil MacGregor’s A History of the World in 100 Objects, the book based around the British Museum collection. Things seem to be in the air.

– See more at: http://podacademy.org/podcasts/a-philosophy-of-everyday-things/#sthash.xvSZWx3P.dpuf