On December 8th, my students will showcase their capstone projects on collaborative consumption, a rising movement in consumer culture that promotes community, sustainability, and economy, defined by Rachel Botsman in What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption. I asked students to bring collaborative consumption to Georgia Tech’s campus. The college campus is fertile…
Blog
Spring 2011 Course: Architecture & Design in Victorian Literature
How to Annotate Digital Texts
(Cross-posted on TECHStyle.) In a recent discussion on “The Real Cost of College Textbooks” in the New York Times, Anya Kamenetz, author of the controversial book DYI U, proposes: “Get Rid of Print and Go Digital.” Kamenetz suggests that professors abandon print textbooks in favor of eBooks and online resources. She asks: Why should we…
A Community Exchange
In the basement of my apartment building, there is a square yellow folding table. It stands next to the door exiting to the parking lot. On this table are random objects: a porcelain doll in a blue velvet dress a small white ceramic teapot with a wicker handle a miniature birdhouse a black ceramic lamp…
Mosquito Meditation
In Awakening the Buddha Within, Lama Surya Das addresses the problem of “meditation with mosquito.” He’s simply referring to the moment when we are deep in mediation practice and a mosquito, or any other irritating distraction, appears buzzing at our ear. What do we do? Of course our natural instinct is to swat it away…
Combating Laziness
Pema Chodron identifies three kinds of laziness: comfort orientation, loss of heart, and “couldn’t care less.” Comfort orientation, in particular, she describes as our tendency to over accommodate our physical needs, such as by turning up the heat at the first sign of brisk weather, and by doing so, we “dull[] our appreciation of smells…
“The World Out of Clothes”
Of course Teufelsdrockh’s Philosophy figures clothes – in one way at least – as the invisible fabric of society, but this passage – with its crude literal denunciation of clothes – does indeed convince us to desire a “world out of clothes,” though our German philosopher would have us believe we are nothing but an…
Technologies of the Individual
Classes began today. I’m teaching an introductory survey of English literature on the “Technologies of the Individual.” Here is the course description. “Never judge a book by its cover.” A simple truth, and yet, our culture is driven by its obsession with creating “image.” Magazines and television shows teach us hair, styling, and exercise techniques…
Pickles Pig and Economics
“Pickles Pig,” a silly book for kids. What a sweet story. Or not. Poor Pickles Pig doesn’t want to be sold by the farmer and get turned into crisp-fry bacon. He learns that he must be sold because it’s the only way the farmer can justify his expenditures on the pig’s food, like the horse…
Dumpster Divers; or, Freegans
This summer I will teach Lars Eighner’s personal essay “On Dumpster Diving.” Eighner, homeless during three years with his dog Lizbeth, recounts his personal experiences and strategies for scavenging a living from the discarded food, clothes, and household items of local residents. This essay, which turned into the longer memoir Travels with Lizbeth, surprises us…