ABSTRACT
Bill Brown begins his essay, “The Secret Life of Things,” by suggesting that a printed text like the copy of Modernism/Modernity in which his essay appears does not fully function as a material thing for his readers. He opens by wishing for the reader to hold “something” else:
You should be reading this with something in your hands besides a journal. And something, really, besides a pencil or pen. Something like an empty glass, a rubber band, a paper clip that you can rub between your fingers, that you can twist and bend back and forth.1
