Graduate students from our Theories of Literacy course are sharing insights from our weekly sessions in weekly blog posts. They’ll rotate the responsibility throughout the fall 2025 semester, sharing how we’re making sense of the ideas that emerge in our time together.
Visualize for a moment that you’re walking into someone’s living room. You’ve probably done it before, and for the most part, you know what to expect. A couch of some kind, a coffee table, perhaps a television there, too, yes? Mundane things, for a household that’s privileged enough. However, with these expectations, you might have some questions if you entered a room with, say, an ominous circle of chairs and nothing in the middle of it. Unsettling? A bit, but deeply interesting as an object of study.
The creepy chair room is, of course, an exaggerated example, but consider the questions such an arrangement might raise. What could we glean about the family’s practices from how that room is structured? I would wager quite a bit. Now, whether we want to know that information… Well, let’s just hope the family was playing a rousing game of musical chairs instead of some horror movie-type summoning and move on.
Teasing out this idea of artifacts and behavior, Cydney Alexis and Hannah J. Rule’s “Introduction” to The Material Culture of Writing utilizes the research of Amber Epp and Linda Price to highlight how “families construct identities around objects and practice” and that “objects facilitate certain types of family engagement” (8). A large table in the middle of a dining room, for example, might suggest that a family shares their meals together often. On the other hand, if it’s pushed up against the wall and covered in magazines, you might imagine that a more independent family practice for dinnertime is occurring. A messy office and pristine living room might reveal where a home’s owner spends the majority of their time.
Consider your own home. What kind of things give your own practices and rituals away? I hadn’t even considered how telling it is, but I can think of several off the top of my head.
Thinking about this another way, just as a person’s objects can reveal much about their practices, the materials outside of their control can shape and disrupt them as well. For example, during our discussion, we considered how we act in the classroom. When we walk into the room, we tend to choose the same seat every time. What happens when that changes? We might certainly be thrown off a bit. On a greater scale, Julian pointed out that you could behave a specific way in your own kitchen, but once you’re in a space that’s unfamiliar to you, your practices are forced to change as you interact with it and the objects around you. You might have to, as Julian puts it, “construct a slightly new identity for that new space.”
With this in mind, we can consider the material culture of writing in particular.
On a similar wavelength as Julian, Tim highlighted the importance of feeling comfortable in the space you write in. He also noted how that comfort can be “very much dependent on the materiality” of the space. I find myself in agreement. While I can get work done in many spaces, it takes a great deal of time for me to write when I’m not at my desk. People can get quite particular about doing things a certain way, especially writers. We discovered as much after sharing our own writing practices and rituals in class.
When we are removed from our spaces or prevented from our rituals, it can most certainly change the way we write, which leans into Alexis and Rule’s notion that “objects appear on every page… but they remain in the background” (4). A writer’s state of mind, influenced by the objects and environment around them, the tools that they use when they write, and the things they have access to, all have a bearing on the text that they produce. Even “things as seemingly inconsequential as an open door, a broken relic, a warm hand, or a crumbly teacake” (9), or, if you ask Hailey, a “truly astronomical amount of caffeine.”
In addition to our writing practices being shaped by materials, it is also worth noting how much they influence and reflect our identities as writers. Not only who we are, but also who we aim to be. Cydney Alexis’ chapter, “The Symbolic Life of the Moleskine Notebook,” explores this idea through the interviews of these three Moleskine notebook users:
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- Fiona: A grad student who had discovered the Moleskine notebook in grade school and turned the object into an extension of herself; she keeps it with her at all times.
- David: An administrator who began using the Moleskine in his first year of college. He utilized the notebook as a vessel for self-discovery and his desire to become a writer.
- Lily: Another grad student who began using the notebook well into adulthood, using it for its practicality for her writing.
Alexis notes that “Humans express themselves through possessions” (26). An accurate statement. We put stickers on our laptops and water bottles, we fill our bookshelves with books and trinkets, and decorate our homes and bodies the way we choose. The Trapper Keeper, which the text spends some time discussing, was so popular in classrooms because it allowed students to express themselves in an academic setting.
When the objects we own are not reflecting who we are, they tend to reflect instead what we “wish to embody” (26).
In my freshman year as an undergraduate, I purchased a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde simply because I believed it was something I needed to read. Similarly, Hailey noted that they have a copy of Ulysses “fermenting” on their shelf. In my case, I did not purchase the book because it was something I wanted to read, exactly, but rather because it encapsulated what I thought an English student should be… which at the time was someone who reads Dorian Gray, I suppose. I was an English major, which was already a fact, yet placing the book on my shelf made me feel more legit. I know better now, but hey, I was eighteen. And before you ask, I still haven’t touched the thing. I’ll get to it… probably.
For David, the Moleskine was his Dorian Gray. He purchased the notebook, not because it was an item he needed for his writing, but because he wanted to be a writer. He was depending on this object to assist in forming the identity he envisioned for himself. In his interview, David notes that he developed this identity to set himself apart from his musician brother. Fiona, too, “cultivated the identity of writer to distinguish herself from her four siblings” (34). Not the best reason to create an identity for yourself, that’s for certain.
This was one of the faults we as a class found within this chapter. 2/3 of the interviewees had essentially become writers to separate themselves from their siblings. Odd. We’d have recommended a larger pool of examples.
Due to this, and simply because we found much more to talk about, a majority of our class time was spent discussing the favorite child of this week’s readings, “Indexical Heirlooms in Immigrant Literacy History Narratives” by Jenny Krichevsky, which is covered in this week’s other blog post by Michelle. Time well spent, I admit. However, the time we did spend reading and discussing “The Symbolic Life of the Moleskine Notebook” was not invaluable. We had very fruitful discussions, in fact.
What many of us found interesting was Lily’s perspective on the Moleskine notebook. As someone who had already forged her identity as a writer, the Moleskine could affect only her practices, and because of this, she was in a better position to recognize the brand’s tactics, which proved effective for buyers like David and Fiona.
Moleskine’s statement that “Moleskine is the legendary notebook, used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin” (30), paired with its “simple” and “nostalgic” branding, is indicative of the company selling nothing more than an aesthetic. One that works on those who might wish to become writers. According to Jordan in Perusall, it’s merely “really good branding.” You cannot, realistically, as Hailey puts it, “buy entrance through an object rather than a practice.” I can buy a guitar right now, hoping to be a musician. I could carry it around on campus and look like a musician, but I’m not going to actually be one until I pick it up and start learning how to play it.
During our class discussion, Dr. Jaxon stated that “The objects you use structure your practice and who you can be in that practice.” This is true, as long as you are actually practicing your practice. Tim, for example, shared that he keeps three different notebooks for when he takes notes while reading. One for academic reading, one for his bible, and one for hobby reading. Sel mentioned that his journaling tends to be on paper, while his creative writing remains on his laptop. I do precisely the same thing. Some of us annotate in pen, pencil, or use highlighters and sticky notes. Some prefer to leave their books untouched and keep their thoughts elsewhere. We use notebooks, journals, Google Docs, Pages, Microsoft Word, and any other program or writing spaces for specific things. These are the objects that shape our practices, and while they might not appear in our work, they are still there as a part of the process.
As this discussion comes to a close, I am left with only a few questions, none of which, I believe, have answers. Where does consumer culture as an observable study begin, and capitalism end? Will I ever read The Picture of Dorian Gray? And what was going on with those chairs?
Haleigh Payne is an English graduate student and instructor at California State University, Chico. Her interests lie in researching video game rhetoric and applying it as an area of study in the classroom. If you find her outside of the academic world, she’s probably playing Dragon Age: Origins for the millionth time, watching Critical Role, or being dragged off by her friends because she’s been doing those things for too long.