Description
Book SynopsisCollecting is usually understood as an activity that bestows permanence, unity, and meaning on otherwise scattered and ephemeral objects. In The Redemption of Things, Samuel Frederick emphasizes that to collect things, however, always entails displacing, immobilizing, and potentially disfiguring them, too. He argues that the dispersal of objects, seemingly antithetical to the collector''s task, is essential to the logic of gathering and preservation.
Through analyses of collecting as a dialectical process of preservation and loss, The Redemption of Things illustrates this paradox by focusing on objects that challenge notions of collectability: ephemera, detritus, and trivialities such as moss, junk, paper scraps, dust, scent, and the transitory moment. In meticulous close readings of works by Gotthelf, Stifter, Keller, Rilke, Glauser, and Frisch, and by examining an experimental film by Oskar Fischinger, Frederick reveals how the difficulties posed by the
Trade Review
This quietly engaging and eloquent book challenges dominant conceptions about collectability by analyzing the collecting of material things whose immateriality, ephemerality, and presumable undesirability would seem to deter if not defy the very act of collecting. [...] Those appreciative of Austrian and Swiss literature along with scholars interested in material culture, collecting, and nonfunctional or "marginal" objects will likely be most attracted to Frederick's book.
* Goethe Yearbook *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. Theorizing Collecting
Part I Ephemera
2. Moss (Stifter)
3. The Photographic Instant (Fischinger)
Part II Catastrophic Detritus
4. Divine Debris (Gotthelf)
5. Maculature / Zettel (Frisch)
Part III Triviality
6. Junk and Containers (Keller)
7. Dust (Glauser)
Conclusion
