Jennifer Howard ’85 has just released a book called “Clutter: An Untidy History.” Faced with the daunting task of cleaning out her elderly mother’s chaotic and jam-packed home, Howard began to ask herself: “Why is this scenario so common? And what drives our need to acquire and accumulate so many things? And what becomes of our belongings when we, or often our loved ones, finally dispose of them?” Howard is a former contributing editor at The Washington Post and a former senior reporter at The Chronicle of Higher Education, whose writing has also appeared in Slate and Humanities magazine.