The last few weeks I’ve had a lot of engagement on Twitter with a thread I posted on January 17 about reactions to Kondō Marie’s hit show Tidying Up. I’m posting the thread below, and I’ve written up a longer piece that just went live at the Marginalia Review of Books. I also discussed the KonMari phenomenon with Tristan Grunow for a new podcast series he is starting up. I’ll post again in this space when that goes live. Anyway, here’s what I initially wrote:

When I wrote the thread I hadn’t yet read Kondō’s book or watched her show, but I’ve now done both and I stand by my analysis. One point of clarification, though, for my fellow scholars with hefty libraries: As many pointed out in response to my thread, Kondō never actually says that one HAS to chuck out ALL THE BOOKS. Reassuringly, she even makes an exception for people like us (i.e., scholars) who have a lot of books. But the “no more than 30 books” thing is a distraction from the broader points I was trying to make, both in the thread and in the Marginalia piece.

Anyway, many of my points in the thread come straight from arguments I make in a forthcoming book chapter titled “Spirit/Medium: Critically Examining the Relationship between Animism and Animation.” The book will soon be out with Bloomsbury Press. Stay tuned!