The Redemption of Things

Collecting is usually understood as an activity that bestows permanence, unity, and meaning on otherwise scattered and ephemeral objects. In The Redemption of Things, Samuel Frederick emphasizes that to collect things, however, always entails displacing, immobilizing, and potentially disfiguring them, too. He argues that the dispersal of objects, seemingly antithetical to the collector's task, is essential to the logic of gathering and preservation.

Through analyses of collecting as a dialectical process of preservation and loss, The Redemption of Things illustrates this paradox by focusing on objects that challenge notions of collectability: ephemera, detritus, and trivialities such as moss, junk, paper scraps, dust, scent, and the transitory moment. In meticulous close readings of works by Gotthelf, Stifter, Keller, Rilke, Glauser, and Frisch, and by examining an experimental film by Oskar Fischinger, Frederick reveals how the difficulties posed by these fleeting, fragile, and forsaken objects help to reconceptualize collecting as a poetic activity that makes the world of scattered things uniquely palpable and knowable.

Samuel Frederick is Associate Professor of German at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of Narratives Unsettled and the coeditor of Robert Walser and Information, a volume of keywords.

Frederick's second book presents a carefully arranged and brilliantly written collection of case studies, encompassing the works of canonical authors of German Realism (Adalbert Stifter, Jeramias Gotthelf, Gottfried Keller) as well as a fairly diverse set of 20th century writers and one filmmaker (Oskar Fischinger, Max Frisch, Friedrich Glauser).

This quietly engaging and eloquent book challenges dominant conceptions about collectability by analyzing the collecting of material things whose immateriality, ephemerality, and presumable undesirability would seem to deter if not defy the very act of collecting. [...] Those appreciative of Austrian and Swiss literature along with scholars interested in material culture, collecting, and nonfunctional or "marginal" objects will likely be most attracted to Frederick's book.

Eric Downing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of The Chain of Things:

The Redemption of Things is a scholarly feast. It makes valuable contributions to the growing interest in practices of collecting, which it approaches as a dialectical process entailing both gathering and letting go. Smart on every page, it is theoretically sophisticated, supported by dazzling close readings, and written in admirably clear and erudite prose.

Andreas Gailus, University of Michigan, author of Forms of Life:

Striking an excellent balance between detailed textual analysis and broader theoretical reflection, The Redemption of Things focuses on the life of things in German-language literary texts to think through issues of textuality and materiality. By combining philology with new materialism, Samuel Frederick argues for the importance of literature in thinking about materiality in general and collecting in particular.