Possessed

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. Analyzing themes and structures of hoarding across a range of literary and visual texts, 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.

The book is published by Cornell University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

"This stimulating read is for anyone with interest in and experience of this challenging problem." (Gail Steketee, Boston University)

“Adds a powerful voice and poignancy to the topic of hoarding...” (Jessie Sholl, author of Dirty Secret)

"Exhaustively researched and brimming with new ideas...” (Raymond Malewitz, Oregon State University)