Possessed: A Cultural History of Hoarding

by Rebecca R. Falkoff

Overview

In Possessed, Rebecca R. Falkoff asks how hoarding—once a paradigm of economic rationality—came to be defined as a mental illness. Hoarding is unique among the disorders included in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM—5, because its diagnosis requires the existence of a material entity: the hoard. Possessed therefore considers the hoard as an aesthetic object produced by clashing perspectives about the meaning or value of objects.

The 2000s have seen a surge of cultural interest in hoarding and those whose possessions overwhelm their living spaces. Unlike traditional economic elaborations of hoarding, which focus on stockpiles of bullion or grain, contemporary hoarding results in accumulations of objects that have little or no value or utility. Analyzing themes and structures of hoarding across a range of literary and visual texts—including works by Nikolai Gogol, Arthur Conan Doyle, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Luigi Malerba, Song Dong and E. L. Doctorow—Falkoff traces the fraught materialities of the present to cluttered spaces of modernity: bibliomaniacs' libraries, flea markets, crime scenes, dust—heaps, and digital archives. Possessed shows how the figure of the hoarder has come to personify the economic, epistemological, and ecological conditions of modernity.

Thanks to generous funding from New York University and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access (OA) volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell—open) and other Open Access repositories.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501752803
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2021
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Rebecca R. Falkoff is Visiting Assistant Professor of Italian at Johns Hopkins University. Follow her on X @rebeccarfalkoff and @ifiwereahoarder.

Table of Contents

Introduction to Hoardiculture
1. Psychologies: The Personal Library
2. Economies: The Flea Market
3. Epistemologies: The Crime Scene
4. Ecologies: An Oikos for Everything
5. Conclusion: Archive Failures

What People are Saying About This

Jessie Sholl

In academic yet accessible prose, Rebecca R. Falkoff adds a powerful voice and poignancy to the topic of hoarding—all while helping us see the relationship between current day hoarders and key figures of modernity.

Gail Steketee

In Possessed, Rebecca R. Falkoff succeeds in capturing the many nuances of hoarding behavior by probing history, psychology, markets, the role of waste, opportunity, and much more. This stimulating read is for anyone with interest in and experience of this challenging problem.

Raymond Malewitz

Exhaustively researched and brimming with new ideas, Possessed offers a richly detailed account of the last two centuries of hoarding and hoarding—adjacent practices in Western culture.

Federica Pedriali

Possessed brilliantly traces the cultural history of hoarding. The book marks a highly rewarding intellectual journey for both author and reader as six delightfully packed units unravel the deeper anthropological mechanisms that make hoarding the ultimate stuff of modernity. Soul—searching in tone and method, and a very personable (as well as personal) account of what has been classed as a pathology, Possessed is at once rigorous and adventurous, overloaded and light—footed, informative and challenging.

William Davies King

I found it thrilling to discover the many inspiring passageways Rebecca R. Falkoff has found into the topic of hoarding: philosophical, critical, historical, and personal. She shows how the literary and artistic imagination bring vision, not diagnosis, to a phenomenon usually relegated to pathology.

Editorial Reviews

Innovative, interdisciplinary, and experimental in spirit, Falkoff triumphs in pushing the boundaries of waste and discard studies, critically transforming the very ways in which we think about—and more significantly think through— hoards/things.Posessed makes an original contribution and poignantly amplifies the epistemological limits of hoarding.

Annali d'Italianistica

Falkoff takes us on a mesmerizing transhistorical ride traversing diverse national cultures and explores the protean nature of hoarding by surveying the entire spectrum of its development from quirky fascination to mental disorder. Possessed is a deeply researched cultural history of hoarding and a masterfully written book that illuminates modern society at large and makes us all rethink our relationship with the material world in which we are immersed

H—Net Reviews H—Italy

Possessed is a masterly and authoritative exposition of the social history and popular culture of hoarding behavior. This is a major scholarly achievement that deals with an important subject subject in a thoughtful and thorough manner.

The British Journal of Psychiatry

Falkoff shows how the collection, or amassing, of objects having little or no usefulness makes its appearance in poetry (e.g., Baudelaire), detective stories, documentary film, and installation art. She reveals the possible meanings of the hoard, as figured in such spaces as flea markets, crime scenes, and libraries. These meanings turn on themes of waste, fetishism, temporality, storytelling, and the question of value. This book's valuable perspective on the issue of hoarding will appeal to those working in cultural studies, history, and modern literature, in addition to students and professionals in psychology.

Choice

Falkoff takes us on a mesmerizing transhistorical ride traversing diverse national cultures and explores the protean nature of hoarding by surveying the entire spectrum of its development from quirky fascination to mental disorder. Possessed is a deeply researched cultural history of hoarding and a masterfully written book that illuminates modern society at large and makes us all rethink our relationship with the material world in which we are immersed

H-Net Reviews H-Italy

Falkoff shows how the collection, or amassing, of objects having little or no usefulness makes its appearance in poetry (e.g., Baudelaire), detective stories, documentary film, and installation art. She reveals the possible meanings of the hoard, as figured in such spaces as flea markets, crime scenes, and libraries. These meanings turn on themes of waste, fetishism, temporality, storytelling, and the question of value. This book's valuable perspective on the issue of hoarding will appeal to those working in cultural studies, history, and modern literature, in addition to students and professionals in psychology.

-- "Choice"

Falkoff takes us on a mesmerizing transhistorical ride traversing diverse national cultures and explores the protean nature of hoarding by surveying the entire spectrum of its development from quirky fascination to mental disorder. Possessed is a deeply researched cultural history of hoarding and a masterfully written book that illuminates modern society at large and makes us all rethink our relationship with the material world in which we are immersed

-- "H-Italy, H-Net Reviews"

Innovative, interdisciplinary, and experimental in spirit, Falkoff triumphs in pushing the boundaries of waste and discard studies, critically transforming the very ways in which we think about--and more significantly think through- hoards/things.Posessed makes an original contribution and poignantly amplifies the epistemological limits of hoarding.

-- "Annali d'Italianistica"

Possessed is a masterly and authoritative exposition of the social history and popular culture of hoarding behavior. This is a major scholarly achievement that deals with an important subject subject in a thoughtful and thorough manner.

-- "The British Journal of Psychiatry"

From the Publisher

Falkoff takes us on a mesmerizing transhistorical ride traversing diverse national cultures and explores the protean nature of hoarding by surveying the entire spectrum of its development from quirky fascination to mental disorder. Possessed is a deeply researched cultural history of hoarding and a masterfully written book that illuminates modern society at large and makes us all rethink our relationship with the material world in which we are immersed

H-Net H-Italy

Innovative, interdisciplinary, and experimental in spirit, Falkoff triumphs in pushing the boundaries of waste and discard studies, critically transforming the very ways in which we think about—and more significantly think through- hoards/things.Posessed makes an original contribution and poignantly amplifies the epistemological limits of hoarding.

ANNALI D'ITALIANISTICA