The Office of Public Scholarship at WashU is pleased to announce the launch of Object Lessons Impressions, an essay series published in partnership with the Pittsburgh Review of Books at Carnegie Mellon University.
Object Lessons Impressions are 500-word mini essays that explore the hidden lives of ordinary things — anything from brooches to chairs to entire cities.
As Chris Schaberg, Director of Public Scholarship, described the new series, “The idea is to give writers a tight constraint in which to focus on one topic: to make something vivid and concrete, while perhaps venturing a bit of insight or a spot of philosophical inquiry.” The Office of Public Scholarship will occasionally use the series as a platform for the general writing workshops that they offer for WashU scholars.
This new venture expands on the Object Lessons book series, co-founded and co-edited by Ian Bogost, co-executive director of WashU’s Office of Public Scholarship, and Schaberg.
Object Lessons is a series of concise books that dive into the history and significance of a singular, quotidian thing. The series, published by Bloomsbury, has released over 100 books since its founding in 2013. Recent Object Lessons books include Taco and Lipstick, written by WashU scholars Ignacio Sánchez Prado and Eileen G’Sell.
Since 2023, Object Lessons has been housed within the Office of Public Scholarship as part of the office’s charge to make academic work accessible and engaging for the public.
Impressions is the evolution of a previous series of “Object Lessons” articles published in partnership with The Atlantic from 2015-2019, including “Mini Object Lessons” pieces from 2015-2016. Like the Mini Object Lessons, Impressions essays will each take on a single topic and dive into it quickly yet deeply, stopping at 500 words.
Impressions pieces will be published in the Pittsburgh Review of Books (PRoB), newly established by editor-in-chief Ed Simon, a public humanities special faculty member in the English Department at Carnegie Mellon, and author of the Object Lessons book Relic.
Simon also serves as editor-in-chief of Belt Magazine (soon to become Rust Belt Magazine). The Office of Public Scholarship has helped several WashU scholars publish their work in Belt, including PhD students Matthew Moore and Naomi Kim, and graduate Jey Sushil, PhD. Sushil published PRoB’s first Impressions piece about his familial relationship with the “Mortar and Pestle.”
Schaberg, recently appointed as a professor of practice in the Department of English at WashU, will teach a course titled “The Art of Publishing” starting in the spring 2026 semester, as part of the publishing specialization for English majors. The course will incorporate Object Lessons books into the curriculum, and students will have the opportunity to draft Impressions essays to experience the editing and publishing process happen in real-time.