Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. When you are born, the first thing you do is scream. Be it a response to fear, anger, sadness, or happiness, the scream is a declaration of being alive. The metal vocalist cupping the microphone blares out a deafeningly harsh scream. The drill instructor screams out commands to their soldiers. And then there's the bloodcurdling screams we know from horror films. A scream has many meanings, but it is an instinctive and reflexive action that, at its core, reveals raw emotion. Investigating popular and alternative cultures, art, and science, Michael J. Seidlinger tracks the resonance of the scream across media and literature and in his own voice. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic . “A comprehensive and deeply personal trip through the cultural history of the scream . From Slipknot to Edvard Munch to John Carpenter and back into his own body, Michael Seidlinger reminds us all why we scream. As a singer, this one really hit home!” ― Geoff Rickly, singer of Thursday “Michael J. Seidlinger dissects the emotional complexity of the scream and-using examples from history, pop culture, and his own life-analyzes the way it highjacks the rational mind. Scream is an unforgettable ode to auditory extremes.” ― Jim Ruland, author of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records Michael J. Seidlinger is a Filipino American author of Anybody Home? (2022) and other books. He has written for, among others, Wired, Buzzfeed, Thrillist, Goodreads, The Observer, Polygon, The Believer , and Publishers Weekly . He teaches at Portland State University and has led workshops at Catapult, Kettle Pond Writer's Conference, and Sarah Lawrence. You can find him online on Twitter (@mjseidlinger) and Instagram (@michaelseidlinger). Ian Bogost is an author and an award-winning game designer. He is Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, Director of Film & Media Studies, and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Bogost is also Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC, an independent game studio, and a Contributing Editor at The Atlantic. Bogost is author or co-author of ten books, including Alien Phenomenology (2012)and Play Anything (2016). Christopher Schaberg is Director of the Program in Public Scholarship at Washington University in St. Louis, USA, and the author of The Textual Life of Airports (2012), The End of Airports (2015), Airportness (2017), The Work of Literature in an Age of Post-Truth (2018), Searching for the Anthropocene (2019), Pedagogy of the Depressed (2021), and Adventure: An Argument for Limits (2023), all published by Bloomsbury. He is also the founding co-editor (with Ian Bogost) of Bloomsbury's Object Lessons book series.