Scott Herring
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226171685
- eISBN:
- 9780226171852
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226171852.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter surveys the role that professional home organizing played in the social construction of hoarding as a mental illness. It argues that organizers normalize the hoarder and present the ...
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This chapter surveys the role that professional home organizing played in the social construction of hoarding as a mental illness. It argues that organizers normalize the hoarder and present the hoarder’s lifestyle as a form of abnormal untidiness. Exploring how these organizers and their self-help books often treat hoarding as an addiction to clutter, the chapter claims that these professionals represent improper housekeeping as a mental illness once called Messy House syndrome or Pack Rat syndrome. Tracing how earlier worries over household hygiene influenced contemporary professional organizing, the chapter then charts how organizers depict excessive clutter as a moral panic over inappropriate household goods. Using the works of professional homer organizer Sandra Felton as its main case study, the chapter finally suggests that the beliefs of professional organizers have been embraced by scientific experts as both treat hoarding as a mental illness in need of assessment and cure.Less
This chapter surveys the role that professional home organizing played in the social construction of hoarding as a mental illness. It argues that organizers normalize the hoarder and present the hoarder’s lifestyle as a form of abnormal untidiness. Exploring how these organizers and their self-help books often treat hoarding as an addiction to clutter, the chapter claims that these professionals represent improper housekeeping as a mental illness once called Messy House syndrome or Pack Rat syndrome. Tracing how earlier worries over household hygiene influenced contemporary professional organizing, the chapter then charts how organizers depict excessive clutter as a moral panic over inappropriate household goods. Using the works of professional homer organizer Sandra Felton as its main case study, the chapter finally suggests that the beliefs of professional organizers have been embraced by scientific experts as both treat hoarding as a mental illness in need of assessment and cure.
William Todd Schultz
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199752041
- eISBN:
- 9780190255961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199752041.003.0004
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter considers the motivations behind Truman Capote's writing of In Cold Blood, his non-fiction novel about the murder of the Clutters, a farm family in Kansas. Capote got the idea for the ...
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This chapter considers the motivations behind Truman Capote's writing of In Cold Blood, his non-fiction novel about the murder of the Clutters, a farm family in Kansas. Capote got the idea for the book after coming across a one-column item about the murders in The New York Times in 1959, a year after the release of Breakfast at Tiffany 's. Capote's initial intention was to write a relatively modest piece, focusing only on the echoes of the murders within the tiny Holcomb community. But writing In Cold Blood represented a different kind of challenge.Less
This chapter considers the motivations behind Truman Capote's writing of In Cold Blood, his non-fiction novel about the murder of the Clutters, a farm family in Kansas. Capote got the idea for the book after coming across a one-column item about the murders in The New York Times in 1959, a year after the release of Breakfast at Tiffany 's. Capote's initial intention was to write a relatively modest piece, focusing only on the echoes of the murders within the tiny Holcomb community. But writing In Cold Blood represented a different kind of challenge.
Eitan Y. Wilf
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226606835
- eISBN:
- 9780226607023
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226607023.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter addresses the puzzling fact that although business innovation is often decoupled from the market to which it purport to refer, this decoupling has only partially undermined the ...
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This chapter addresses the puzzling fact that although business innovation is often decoupled from the market to which it purport to refer, this decoupling has only partially undermined the perception of its value in and outside the business world. The reason lies in innovators’ efforts to signal to clients by means of different performative practices that “innovation is now taking place.” The chapter argues that innovators use specific material artifacts and communicative practices to mediate the notion that their expertise is based in the ideals of flexibility, speed, minimalism, free information flow, and organizational creativity. However, these acts of mediation also have unintended consequences. They clutter the work of innovation and create centers of gravity, opacity, and rigidness. In other words, they both mediate and undermine the ideals with which innovators would like to be associated. The chapter explores this contradiction as it finds expression in innovators’ efforts to mediate their workspace, expertise, thought processes, and selves as organizationally creative.Less
This chapter addresses the puzzling fact that although business innovation is often decoupled from the market to which it purport to refer, this decoupling has only partially undermined the perception of its value in and outside the business world. The reason lies in innovators’ efforts to signal to clients by means of different performative practices that “innovation is now taking place.” The chapter argues that innovators use specific material artifacts and communicative practices to mediate the notion that their expertise is based in the ideals of flexibility, speed, minimalism, free information flow, and organizational creativity. However, these acts of mediation also have unintended consequences. They clutter the work of innovation and create centers of gravity, opacity, and rigidness. In other words, they both mediate and undermine the ideals with which innovators would like to be associated. The chapter explores this contradiction as it finds expression in innovators’ efforts to mediate their workspace, expertise, thought processes, and selves as organizationally creative.
