Synopsis
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
For as long as people have traveled to distant lands, they have brought home objects to certify the journey. More than mere merchandise, these travel souvenirs take on a personal and cultural meaning that goes beyond the object itself. Drawing on several millennia of examples-from the relic-driven quests of early Christians, to the mass-produced tchotchkes that line the shelves of a Disney gift shop-travel writer Rolf Potts delves into a complicated history that explores issues of authenticity, cultural obligation, market forces, human suffering, and self-presentation. Souvenirs are shown for what they really are: not just objects, but personalized forms of folk storytelling that enable people to make sense of the world and their place in it.'
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
Souvenir features illustrations by Cedar Van Tassel
About the Authors
Rolf Potts has reported from more than 60 countries for the likes of The New Yorker, The Believer, Sports Illustrated, Slate, Salon, The Atlantic, National Geographic Traveler, National Public Radio, and the Travel Channel. He is the author of two travel books, Vagabonding and Marco Polo Didn't Go There.
Cedar Van Tassel was born in Saline County, Kansas in 1999. He started drawing Appleguy as a comic strip for the Marlboro College student newspaper, and started publishing it regularly as a weekly Instagram comic in 2022. His work has been published in comics anthologies like CRAM and Frankenstein Magazine. A lifelong plant and prairie lover, he does work on ecological restoration projects throughout the Great Plains. He lives in Gypsum, Kansas.
Ian Bogost is an author and an award-winning game designer. He is Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, Director of Film & Media Studies, and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Bogost is also Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC, an independent game studio, and a Contributing Editor at The Atlantic. Bogost is author or co-author of ten books, including Alien Phenomenology (2012)and Play Anything (2016).
Christopher Schaberg is Director of the Program in Public Scholarship at Washington University in St. Louis, USA, and the author of The Textual Life of Airports (2012), The End of Airports (2015), Airportness (2017), The Work of Literature in an Age of Post-Truth (2018), Searching for the Anthropocene (2019), Pedagogy of the Depressed (2021), and Adventure: An Argument for Limits (2023), all published by Bloomsbury. He is also the founding co-editor (with Ian Bogost) of Bloomsbury's Object Lessons book series.
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