Exploring Material Culture: How the Moleskine Notebook Performs Identity Work in Garrard Conley's Memoir 'Boy Erased'

Seminar paper from the year 2022 in the subject American Studies, grade: 1,7, University of Paderborn (Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften), course: American Things: Exploring Material Culture, language: English, abstract: This paper examines a seemingly simple object, the Moleskine notebook. The Moleskine notebook with its simple and plain design is a tool for writing and sketching. Yet, its popularity is not to be overlooked. A simple Google search for 'Moleskine' reveals countless blog entries, articles, detailed images, and accounts of writers' or artists' uses of this object. A fan blog , Moleskinerie.com, gained such popularity that the company eventually took over and now runs the blog itself. Alexis even claims that Moleskine users 'constitute a sort of cult'. Not only is the Moleskine journal a practical writing tool, but it also represents who we are and thereby supports peoples' identity work. American author and LGBTQ activist Garrad Conley is an adamant consumer of the Moleskine notebook.In Boy Erased, a 2016 Memoir, he openly narrates his traumatizing and psychologically harmful experiences made at Love In Action, a Christian ex-gay ministry founded in 1973, and the journey of accepting and finding his identity.