The famed anthropologist Clifford Geertz said that “small facts speak to large issues.”

Today marks the end of finals week for the winter semester, and in reviewing all the small items in today’s lost-and-found bin in Ladd Library, we share this big takeway: It’s been a busy time for Bates students.

Here’s what we found:

  • Copy of the April 9 issue of The New Yorker (with a wrapper telling the student that it’s her last copy, “unless we hear from you right away.”
  • Two black ankle socks.
  • Glow-in-the-dark bracelet no longer glowing.
  • Assorted earrings.
  • Notebook with a boxed to-do list: “Write memo…finish gender and visual culture reading…go to the gym…start writing midterm paper…finalize ‘Sociology of Gender’ video script…install Photoshop.” (In the margin, there’s a reminder about a bus trip for the Lost Valley Bates Takeover, a March evening when Bates rented the small local ski area. More than 450 people attended.)
  • Red beaded necklace.

(Jay Burns/Bates College)

  • A graded paper from English 296, “Methods and Modes of Literary Study,” taught by Professor of English Sylvia Federico. The paper’s title: “Historical Amnesia in Octavia Butler’s Kindred.” Federico’s comment: “This is a very smart discussion. Is American identity symbolized in the bodies of its most vulnerable/abused members?” The grade: an A!
  • Bates Residence Life 2017–18 water bottle.
  • Empty DITA sunglasses case.
  • Printed program for the opening of the annual Senior Thesis Exhibition in the Museum of Art.
  • Knit cap (no brand).
  • Two mismatched leather gloves (no brand).
  • Two custom rubber wrist bands, one touting lacrosse, the other imprinted with “Bates Allies,” an LGBTQ support initiative that gives individuals education, skills, and ways to ensure a safe and welcoming campus.
  • Copy of Thomas Hardy’s last completed novel, Jude the Obscure.
  • Copy of Natural Goodness by Philippa Foot, presenting a “naturalistic theory of ethics,” according to the publisher.
  • Copy of Minding the Body: Women Writers on Body and Soul, an anthology on “the psychological and political aspects of a woman’s body in today’s culture.”