A Cultural History of the Senses in the Modern Age
A Cultural History of the Senses in the Modern Age

Author: David Howes

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-10-23

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1474233163

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In the 20th century, many aspects of life became 'a matter of perception' in the wake of the multiplication of media, stylistic experimentation, and the rise of multiculturalism. Life sped up as a result of new modes of transportation – automobiles and airplanes – and communication – telephones and personal computers – which emphasized the rapid movement of people and ideas. The proliferation of synthetic products and simulated experiences, from artificial flavors to video games, in turn, created heady virtual worlds of sensation. This progressive mediation and acceleration of sensation, along with the sensory and environmental pollution it often spawned, also sparked various countertrends, such as the 'back to nature' movement, the craft movement, slow food and alternative medicine. This volume shows how attending to the sensory dynamics of the modern age yields many fresh insights into the intertwined processes which gave the 20th century its particular feel of technological prowess and gaudy artificiality. A Cultural History of the Senses in the Modern Age presents essays on the following topics: the social life of the senses; urban sensations; the senses in the marketplace; the senses in religion; the senses in philosophy and science; medicine and the senses; the senses in literature; art and the senses; and sensory media.

A Cultural History of the Senses in Antiquity
A Cultural History of the Senses in Antiquity

Author: Jerry Toner

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Published: 2018-09-20

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9781350077843

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The ancient world used the senses to express an enormous range of cultural meanings. Indeed the senses were functionally significant in all aspects of ancient life, often in ways that were complex and interconnected. Antiquity was also a period where the senses were experienced vividly: cities stank, statues were brightly painted and literature made full use of sensory imagery to create its effects. In a steeply hierarchical world, with vast differences between the landed wealthy, the poor and the slaves, the senses played a key role in establishing and maintaining boundaries between social groups; but the use of the senses in the ancient world was not static. New religions, such as Christianity, developed their own way of using the senses, acquiring unique forms of sensory-related symbolism in processes which were slow and often contested. The aim of this volume is to provide an overview of these structures and developments and to show how their study can yield a more nuanced understanding of the ancient world. A Cultural History of the Senses in Antiquity presents essays on the following topics: the social life of the senses; urban sensations; the senses in the marketplace; the senses in religion; the senses in philosophy and science; medicine and the senses; the senses in literature; art and the senses; and sensory media.

A History of the Senses
A History of the Senses

Author: Robert Jütte

Publisher: Polity

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 074562958X

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Jutte charts the development of our attitudes and relationships to our senses from antiquity through to the 20th century, creating a tapestry of different traditions, images, metaphors, and ideas that have survived through time.

The Deepest Sense
The Deepest Sense

Author: Constance Classen

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2012-05-15

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0252094409

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From the softest caress to the harshest blow, touch lies at the heart of our experience of the world. Now, for the first time, this deepest of senses is the subject of an extensive historical exploration. The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch fleshes out our understanding of the past with explorations of lived experiences of embodiment from the middle ages to modernity. This intimate and sensuous approach to history makes it possible to foreground the tactile foundations of Western culture--the ways in which feelings shaped society. Constance Classen explores a variety of tactile realms including the feel of the medieval city; the tactile appeal of relics; the social histories of pain, pleasure, and affection; the bonds of touch between humans and animals; the strenuous excitement of sports such as wrestling and jousting; and the sensuous attractions of consumer culture. She delves into a range of vital issues, from the uses--and prohibitions--of touch in social interaction to the disciplining of the body by the modern state, from the changing feel of the urban landscape to the technologization of touch in modernity. Through poignant descriptions of the healing power of a medieval king's hand or the grueling conditions of a nineteenth-century prison, we find that history, far from being a dry and lifeless subject, touches us to the quick.

A Cultural History of the Senses in the Modern Age
A Cultural History of the Senses in the Modern Age

Author: David Howes

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-10-23

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 1474233171

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In the 20th century, many aspects of life became 'a matter of perception' in the wake of the multiplication of media, stylistic experimentation, and the rise of multiculturalism. Life sped up as a result of new modes of transportation – automobiles and airplanes – and communication – telephones and personal computers – which emphasized the rapid movement of people and ideas. The proliferation of synthetic products and simulated experiences, from artificial flavors to video games, in turn, created heady virtual worlds of sensation. This progressive mediation and acceleration of sensation, along with the sensory and environmental pollution it often spawned, also sparked various countertrends, such as the 'back to nature' movement, the craft movement, slow food and alternative medicine. This volume shows how attending to the sensory dynamics of the modern age yields many fresh insights into the intertwined processes which gave the 20th century its particular feel of technological prowess and gaudy artificiality. A Cultural History of the Senses in the Modern Age presents essays on the following topics: the social life of the senses; urban sensations; the senses in the marketplace; the senses in religion; the senses in philosophy and science; medicine and the senses; the senses in literature; art and the senses; and sensory media.

A Natural History of the Senses
A Natural History of the Senses

Author: Diane Ackerman

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2011-12-07

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0307763315

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Diane Ackerman's lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planet Earth. “Delightful . . . gives the reader the richest possible feeling of the worlds the senses take in.” —The New York Times

Drawing and the Senses
Drawing and the Senses

Author: Caroline O. Fowler

Publisher: Harvey Miller

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781909400399

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A study of drawing and philosophy in artistic practice, important not only for art history but also for literature studies, intellectual history, religious history, history of the book,and history of science. 00Leon Battista Alberti wrote in 'De pictura' (1435) that painting is divine because, ?as they say of friendship, a painting lets the absent be present.? Absence and Presence in Early-Modern Drawing Pedagogy examines this relationship between absent and present objects and subjects in early-modern artistic pedagogy. This book studies the intersections among artistic treatises, natural philosophy and theology from 1400-1700, arguing that drawing pedagogy sought to teach the painting of histories that stimulated in the viewer the sensation of being present before the historical moment, the person, the still life. The manifestation of presence remained not only in the sensation of sight but also in all the sensory perceptions of touch, taste, smell and the sixth sense of sensing, the experience of existence. This book demonstrates the pedagogical means by which artists sought to teach the simulation of presence (and the sensorial perception of absence

Food History
Food History

Author: Sylvie Vabre

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-05-17

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1000390969

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This pioneering book elevates the senses to a central role in the study of food history because the traditional focus upon food types, quantities, and nutritional values is incomplete without some recognition of smell, touch, sight, hearing, and taste. Eating is a sensual experience. Every day and at every meal the senses of smell, touch, sight, hearing, and taste are engaged in the acts of preparation and consumption. And yet these bodily acts are ephemeral; their imprint upon the source material of history is vestigial. Hitherto historians have shown little interest in the senses beyond taste, and this book fills that research gap. Four dimensions are treated: • Words, Symbols and Uses: Describing the Senses – an investigation of how specific vocabularies for food are developed. • Industrializing the Senses – an analysis of the fundamental change in the sensory qualities of foods under the pressure of industrialization and economic forces outside the control of the household and the artisan producer. • Nationhood and the Senses – an exploration of how the combination of the senses and food play into how nations saw themselves, and how food was a signature of how political ideologies played out in practical, everyday terms. • Food Senses and Globalization – an examination of links between food, the senses, and the idea of international significance. Putting all of the senses on the agenda of food history for the first time, this is the ideal volume for scholars of food history, food studies and food culture, as well as social and cultural historians. Putting all of the senses on the agenda of food history for the first time, this is the ideal volume for scholars of food history, food studies and food culture, as well as social and cultural historians.

New Self, New World
New Self, New World

Author: Philip Shepherd

Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Published: 2011-05-31

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 1583944028

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In the tradition of Quantum Healing and Guns, Germs and Steel, Philip Shepherd's New Self, New World makes an intellectual inquiry into how we might restore freedom, creativity, and a sense of presence in the moment by rejecting several fundamental myths about being human New Self, New World challenges the primary story of what it means to be human, the random and materialistic lifestyle that author Philip Shepherd calls our “shattered reality.” This reality encourages us to live in our heads, self-absorbed in our own anxieties. Drawing on diverse sources and inspiration, New Self, New World reveals that our state of head-consciousness falsely teaches us to see the body as something we possess and to try to take care of it without ever really learning how to inhabit it. Shepherd articulates his vision of a world in which each of us enjoys a direct, unmediated experience of being alive. He petitions against the futile pursuit of the “known self” and instead reveals the simple grace of just being present. In compelling prose, Shepherd asks us to surrender to the reality of “what is” that enables us to reunite with our own being. Each chapter is accompanied by exercises meant to bring Shepherd’s vision into daily life, what the author calls a practice that “facilitates the voluntary sabotage of long-standing patterns.” New Self, New World is at once a philosophical primer, a spiritual handbook, and a roaming inquiry into human history.

Archaeology and the Senses
Archaeology and the Senses

Author: Yannis Hamilakis

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-01-20

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1107728940

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This book is an exciting new look at how archaeology has dealt with the bodily senses and offers an argument for how the discipline can offer a richer glimpse into the human sensory experience. Yannis Hamilakis shows how, despite its intensely physical engagement with the material traces of the past, archaeology has mostly neglected multi-sensory experience, instead prioritising isolated vision and relying on the Western hierarchy of the five senses. In place of this limited view of experience, Hamilakis proposes a sensorial archaeology that can unearth the lost, suppressed, and forgotten sensory and affective modalities of humans. Using Bronze Age Crete as a case study, Hamilakis shows how sensorial memory can help us rethink questions ranging from the production of ancestral heritage to large-scale social change, and the cultural significance of monuments. Hamilakis points the way to reconstituting archaeology as a sensorial and affective multi-temporal practice.