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When I die, I will leave nothing but junk. If I
went to my house, to my estate sale, after I
died, I would buy everything. Of course, since I
bought it all in the first place, that shouldn't
be much of a surprise. Yet even if it wasn't me,
I would buy it all. There are others who would do
the same. People come to my house and are amazed
by my junk. But those people are junkers. When
people who aren't junkers come to my house, they
laugh at my things. Or they say my house is
creepy because everything in it was owned by
people who are now dead
michael zadoorin second hand a novel
I tell them, They're not all dead. Some are in
nursing homes.
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• collecting vintage modern furniture in the
  secondhand marketplaces

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• old furniture, new meanings collecting vintage
  modern furniture

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• co-chairs
• P. Boradkar
• P. Rothstein
• others
• G. Isaac, PhD (anthropology)
• TBD

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• vintage modern refers to objects (e.g.
  furniture) produced primarily during the 1950s
  and 1960s that represent Modernist ideologies
• examples include the work of Charles and Ray
  Eames, Hans Wegner, Jens Risom, etc.

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• during the past ten to fifteen years modern
  furniture has undergone a significant revival
• evidence exists in various media (shelter mags,
  television shows and ads, movies, etc.)
• demand is such that companies such as Herman
  Miller and Knoll have reissued some of their
  classics
• Modernica (and others) are manufacturing other
  classics under official license

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• many collectors of vintage modern insist on
  authentic originals
• the world wide web (especially eBay) has made
  access to originals quite easy
• however, some collectors prefer other markets
• thrift stores
• estate sales
• garage sales

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• proposed study will be an ethnography of vintage
  modern furniture collectors and dealers
• literature search (underway)
• design theory
• semiotics
• material culture
• revivalism
• nostalgia theory

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• why do people collect vintage modern furniture?

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• approach
• qualitative research
• method
• ethnography
• short film (optional)

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• questions?

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