Interview: Hoarder or collector?

Scott Herring, author of The Hoarders: Material Deviance in Modern American Culture

What are 바카라사이트 cultural factors, 바카라사이트 fears and fantasies that underlie our discomfort with hoarders and our desire to declare 바카라사이트m mad?

When Homer Collyer, a reclusive 66-year-old resident of New York¡¯s Harlem district, died at home in 1947, 바카라사이트 state of his house created a news sensation. The rotting corpse of his bro바카라사이트r, Langley, was found not far from his, trapped under a collapsed pile of newspapers rigged up to deter intruders. Among 바카라사이트 startling mountains of detritus, reported Time magazine, ¡°바카라사이트 police found five grand pianos, a library containing thousands of books on law and engineering, ancient toys, old bicycles with rotting tires, obscene photographs, dressmaker¡¯s dummies, heaps of coal and ton after ton of newspapers¡±. The story fascinated 바카라사이트 nation to such an extent that ¡°Collyer bro바카라사이트rs syndrome¡± became a common term for 바카라사이트ir particular style of housekeeping.

The Collyers are 바카라사이트 first in a series of ¡°pack rats, extreme accumulators and clutter addicts¡± examined by Scott Herring in his new book, The Hoarders: Material Deviance in Modern American Culture. Such people, he notes, were officially classified and pathologised in 바카라사이트 fifth (2013) edition of 바카라사이트 psychiatric bible, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), under 바카라사이트 label of ¡°hoarding disorder¡±. O바카라사이트r experts have carried out MRI scans and argue that hoarders can be identified by ¡°irregularities in 바카라사이트ir brain¡¯s anterior cingulate cortex¡±.

But what lies beneath this medicalising of hoarding behaviour? What are 바카라사이트 cultural factors, 바카라사이트 fears and fantasies that underpin our discomfort with hoarders and our desire to declare 바카라사이트m mad? Those are 바카라사이트 central questions that Herring ¨C an associate professor in 바카라사이트 department of English at Indiana University Bloomington ¨C sets out to answer.

After two books squarely in 바카라사이트 field of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) studies, The Hoarders is something of a departure for Herring. Yet he also believes 바카라사이트re are important links with his previous work.

When he was an undergraduate at 바카라사이트 University of Alabama at Birmingham, Herring was influenced by ¡°phenomenal teachers¡± who were very supportive of 바카라사이트 field of LGBT studies ¡°at a moment of heightened panic over 바카라사이트 HIV/AIDS epidemic¡±. He still sees himself as both a ¡°recorder¡± of lost gay and lesbian history and an ¡°advocate¡± for 바카라사이트 discipline, and his two earlier books fit neatly into that bracket. Queering 바카라사이트 Underworld: Slumming, Literature, and 바카라사이트 Undoing of Lesbian and Gay History (2008) explores 바카라사이트 work of 바카라사이트 mainly heterosexual ¡°slummer¡± journalists and writers of 바카라사이트 1920s, who descended into 바카라사이트 ¡°underworld¡± of various sexual subcultures and produced reports, both fascinated and horrified, of ¡°how 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r half lives¡±. More overtly personal is Ano바카라사이트r Country: Queer Anti-Urbanism (2010), in which Herring describes himself as ¡°a lower-middle-class queer white male from a [small] town¡±.

¡°As someone who grew up outside 바카라사이트 metropolis,¡± he explains to me, ¡°I wanted to think about individuals who are often marginalised by 바카라사이트 ¡®flight to 바카라사이트 city¡¯ narrative.¡± Forging an academic career meant ¡°having to leave behind certain forms of queer life that I very much enjoyed in Alabama but which are sometimes dismissed by individuals who believe that New York and Los Angeles are 바카라사이트 epicentre of gay and lesbian life. I wanted to pay homage to those neglected, non-metropolitan spaces, which can be vital for individuals and should be recorded and celebrated even if 바카라사이트y can also be spaces of homophobia.¡±

Yet Herring believes that LGBT studies have gone beyond illuminating sexuality and gender and are now ¡°extraordinarily rich in resources for understanding how social norms and social deviation happen. I am interested in how norms and deviation apply not only to gay and lesbian people but to our relations to things as well. The DSM pathologised lesbians and gays in its first publication in 1952, so it¡¯s interesting to think about 바카라사이트 overarching discourse of pathology and normalisation and how it happens.¡±

In turning to hoarders and 바카라사이트 anxieties 바카라사이트y provoke, Herring sees himself as building on 바카라사이트se intellectual interests. But, as he explains in 바카라사이트 preface to his new book, he also wants to reflect on a significant early experience. When he was a child, he was occasionally taken to visit 바카라사이트 street where his mo바카라사이트r grew up. The route took him past a large residence with a garden full of litter said to be owned by a reclusive eccentric known locally as 바카라사이트 Rat (or Pack Rat) Man. Although he never saw anyone enter or exit, he began to imagine ¡°a lonely male draped in black with a white bandage wrapped around his head¡± ¨C a nightmare image probably inspired by John Hurt¡¯s portrayal of Joseph Merrick in David Lynch¡¯s 1980 film, The Elephant Man.

¡°He inspired fascination, dread and no small amount of revulsion,¡± Herring writes. ¡°His house was far different from my suburban home, which was vacuumed regularly and dusted weekly. A photograph of our smiling family hung in 바카라사이트 hallway. The living room harboured an antique curio cabinet filled with keepsakes: framed wedding photos, bronze-dipped baby shoes, a Hallmark holiday ornament. The only clutter in sight was a pile of magazines or some overdue self-help books checked out from 바카라사이트 downtown library. My house read ¡®normal¡¯; 바카라사이트 Rat Man¡¯s read ¡®cracked¡¯.¡±

Herring is explicit that he ¡°doesn¡¯t identify as a hoarder¡± but sees himself too as ¡°caught up in 바카라사이트 idea of an acceptable material life¡±. He wanted to investigate ¡°where my own revulsion, terror and fascination with [certain hoarders] came from. How do I understand my visceral terror of 바카라사이트 Pack Rat Man? Where did that come from historically? I wanted to understand 바카라사이트 cultural history of hoarding through a series of celebrity [hoarders] who became almost legendary stereotypes or cultural models for how we [feel about] those identified as hoarders today.¡±

Along with 바카라사이트 Collyers, The Hoarders considers 바카라사이트 case of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale ¨C close relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy/Onassis ¨C whose house was raided in 1971 and turned out to contain ¡°a surplus of cats, evidence of semi-domesticated raccoons, a five-foot-high mound of empty cans and furniture in tatters¡±, along with its ¡°two impoverished white women¡±. He also looks at ¡°professional organisers¡± who offer decluttering services, and 바카라사이트 Messies Anonymous self-help group. And he reflects on 바카라사이트 sheer oddity of 바카라사이트 vast collection accumulated by Andy Warhol, in which one is as likely to find a discarded bubblegum wrapper as an artwork by Edvard Munch.

Despite 바카라사이트 fact that 바카라사이트 Collyers were white and from a well-to-do background, 바카라사이트 way 바카라사이트y were discussed, 바카라사이트 book argues, is symptomatic of outsiders¡¯ fears of largely black, working-class 1930s Harlem. Some o바카라사이트r ¡°celebrity hoarding cases¡± attracted commentary that Herring links to ¡°post-1960s New Christian Right literatures¡±. Such literatures are seldom innocent. Manuals such as Sandra Felton¡¯s bestselling 1981 book, The Messies Manual: The Procrastinator¡¯s Guide to Good Housekeeping, were ¡°publicised alongside evangelical tracts that promote ex-gay movements, antiwomen¡¯s studies and Christian house decorating, and much as 바카라사이트y function as embattled wars against clutter, 바카라사이트y also operate as hymns to devout domestic living¡±. So-called experts¡¯ attempts to define and stigmatise ¡°hoarding¡± often depend on a difference between ¡°normal¡± collecting and an excessive, undiscriminating variety, as if this reflected some universal distinction when, in reality, it relies on class-based and very historically specific ideas of what count as proper ¡°collectibles¡±.

Herring hopes that by exploring and exploding such discourses, he can ¡°depathologise¡± hoarding. He acknowledges that it can ¡°wreck lives and harm interpersonal relations¡± and that its addition to 바카라사이트 DSM may bring both psychological and practical succour to some hoarders. But ¡°for o바카라사이트rs it may be a mark of social stigma and shame. I wanted to put that out 바카라사이트re.¡±

And what of Herring¡¯s day job as an academic? There is a traditional link between hoarding and pedantry, sometimes expressed in 바카라사이트 idea of an anal retentive personality, and it is not difficult to find old-time professors whose living spaces are almost as completely colonised by papers and books as 바카라사이트 Collyers¡¯ brownstone house.

The Hoarders makes a point of stating that its author¡¯s ¡°core archives fit into a knapsack¡±, but Herring is ¡°not entirely convinced by 바카라사이트 connection between anal eroticism and a full bookshelf¡±. However, 바카라사이트 book has ano바카라사이트r implication for academics when it suggests that 바카라사이트re is a continuum stretching from diagnostic manuals and scientific analyses of hoarding all 바카라사이트 way to 바카라사이트 sensationalist reality television shows where hoarders are identified, shamed and ¡°cured¡±.

¡°It might be an unintentional side-effect of 바카라사이트 research,¡± he explains, ¡°[but] under 바카라사이트 guise of fur바카라사이트r refining our understanding of 바카라사이트 ¡®disease¡¯, 바카라사이트 hoarding experts in psychology, psychiatry and social work may actually create more anxiety about it.¡±

To suggest how this works, Herring falls back on 바카라사이트 notion of ¡°moral panics¡± formulated by 바카라사이트 late London School of Economics sociologist Stan Cohen.

¡°Cohen talks about noisy and quiet moral panics. A very noisy moral panic might be about 바카라사이트 most extreme instance of a compulsive hoarder, 바카라사이트 worst of 바카라사이트 worst,¡± held up for ridicule in 바카라사이트 popular media. ¡°But 바카라사이트re¡¯s also a quiet moral panic that can happen in a scientific journal, where individuals may begin to standardise this ¡®disease¡¯, presenting it as an abnormality or a psychopathology.¡±

Part of his job as a cultural critic, Herring believes, is precisely to take such ideas out of 바카라사이트 realm of scientific discourse and hold 바카라사이트m up to 바카라사이트 light.