Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader

by David Howes (Editor)

Overview

With groundbreaking contributions by Marshall McLuhan, Oliver Sacks, Italo Calvino and Alain Corbin, among others, Empire of the Senses overturns linguistic and textual models of interpretation and places sensory experience at the forefront of cultural analysis. The senses are gateways of knowledge, instruments of power, sources of pleasure and pain - and they are subject to dramatically different constructions in different societies and periods. Empire of the Senses charts the new terrains opened up by the sensual revolution in scholarship, as it takes the reader into the sensory worlds of the medieval witch and the postmodern mall, a Japanese tea ceremony and a Boston shelter for the homeless. This compelling revisioning of history and cultural studies sparkles with wit and insight and is destined to become a landmark in the field.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781000515435
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/05/2021
Series:	Sensory Formations
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	432
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

David Howes is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, Montreal. He is the author of Sensual Relations: Engaging the Senses in Culture and Social Theory and a co-author of Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell.

Table of Contents

General Introduction: Empires of the Senses Part I: The Prescience of the Senses 'Culture Tunes Our Neurons' 'The Mind's Eye: What the Blind See'--Oliver Sacks * 'Inside the Five Sense Sensorium'--Marshall McLuhan, formerly University of Toronto Part II. The Shifting Sensorium Historicizing Perception 'Remembering the Senses'--Susan Stewart, Princeton University * 'The Witch's Senses: Sensory Ideologies and Transgressive Femininities from the Renaissance to Modernity'--Constance Classen, Concordia University, Montreal * 'The Senses Divided: Organs, Objects, and Media in Early Modern England'--Carla Mazzio, University of Chicago * 'The Death of the Sensuous Chemist: The 'New' Chemistry and the Transformation of Sensuous Technology'--Lissa Roberts, University of Twente, Netherlands * 'Charting the Cultural History of the Senses'-- Alain Corbin, Universites de Paris Part III. Sensescapes Sensation in Cultural Context 'McLuhan in the Rainforest: The Sensory Worlds of Oral Cultures'--Constance Classen, Concordia University, Montreal * 'Consciousness as 'Feeling in the Body': A West African Theory of Embodiment, Emotion and the Making of Mind'--Kathryn Linn Geurts, Hamline University, Minnesota * 'Places Sensed, Senses Placed: Towards a Sensuous Epistemology of Space'--Steven Feld, University of New Mexico, Albequerque * 'The Tea Ceremony: A Symbolic Analysis'--Dorinne Kondo, University of Southern California * 'Engaging the Spirits of Modernity: Temiar Songs of a Changing World'--Marina Roseman, Indiana University * 'Home Cooking: Filipino Women and Geographies of the Senses in Hong Kong'--Lisa Law, University of St Andrews Part IV. The Aestheticization of Everyday Life Aestheticization Takes Command 'A Tonic of Wildness: Sensuousness in Henry David Thoreau'--Victor Carl Friesen, Independent Scholar * 'Volatile Effects: Olfactory Dimensions of Art and Architecture'--Jim Drobnick, Parachute Magazine * 'HYPERAESTHESIA, or, The Sensual Logic of Late Capitalism'--David Howes, Concordia University, Montreal * 'Under the Jaguar Sun'--Italo Calvino * 'Michel Serres' Five Senses'--Steven Connor, Birckbeck College * 'Darwin's Disgust'--William Ian Miller, University of Michigan Law School Part V. The Derangement of the Senses The Senses Disordered 'Strindberg's 'Deranged Sensations''--Hans-Göran Ekman, University of Uppsala * 'Movement, Stillness: On the Sensory World of a Shelter for the 'Homeless Mentally Ill''--Robert Desjarlais, Sarah Lawrence College, New York * 'Dystoposthesia: Emplacing Environmental Sensitivities'--Christopher Fletcher, University of Alberta, EdmontonGeneral Introduction: Empires of the Senses Part I: The Prescience of the Senses 'Culture Tunes Our Neurons' 'The Mind's Eye: What the Blind See'--Oliver Sacks * 'Inside the Five Sense Sensorium'--Marshall McLuhan, formerly University of Toronto Part II. The Shifting Sensorium Historicizing Perception 'Remembering the Senses'--Susan Stewart, Princeton University * 'The Witch's Senses: Sensory Ideologies and Transgressive Femininities from the Renaissance to Modernity'--Constance Classen, Concordia University, Montreal * 'The Senses Divided: Organs, Objects, and Media in Early Modern England'--Carla Mazzio, University of Chicago * 'The Death of the Sensuous Chemist: The 'New' Chemistry and the Transformation of Sensuous Technology'--Lissa Roberts, University of Twente, Netherlands * 'Charting the Cultural History of the Senses'-- Alain Corbin, Universites de Paris Part III. Sensescapes Sensation in Cultural Context 'McLuhan in the Rainforest: The Sensory Worlds of Oral Cultures'--Constance Classen, Concordia University, Montreal * 'Consciousness as 'Feeling in the Body': A West African Theory of Embodiment, Emotion and the Making of Mind'--Kathryn Linn Geurts, Hamline University, Minnesota * 'Places Sensed, Senses Placed: Towards a Sensuous Epistemology of Space'--Steven Feld, University of New Mexico, Albequerque * 'The Tea Ceremony: A Symbolic Analysis'--Dorinne Kondo, University of Southern California * 'Engaging the Spirits of Modernity: Temiar Songs of a Changing World'--Marina Roseman, Indiana University * 'Home Cooking: Filipino Women and Geographies of the Senses in Hong Kong'--Lisa Law, University of St Andrews Part IV. The Aestheticization of Everyday Life Aestheticization Takes Command 'A Tonic of Wildness: Sensuousness in Henry David Thoreau'--Victor Carl Friesen, Independent Scholar * 'Volatile Effects: Olfactory Dimensions of Art and Architecture'--Jim Drobnick, Parachute Magazine * 'HYPERAESTHESIA, or, The Sensual Logic of Late Capitalism'--David Howes, Concordia University, Montreal * 'Under the Jaguar Sun'--Italo Calvino * 'Michel Serres' Five Senses'--Steven Connor, Birckbeck College * 'Darwin's Disgust'--William Ian Miller, University of Michigan Law School Part V. The Derangement of the Senses The Senses Disordered 'Strindberg's 'Deranged Sensations''--Hans-Göran Ekman, University of Uppsala * 'Movement, Stillness: On the Sensory World of a Shelter for the 'Homeless Mentally Ill''--Robert Desjarlais, Sarah Lawrence College, New York * 'Dystoposthesia: Emplacing Environmental Sensitivities'--Christopher Fletcher, University of Alberta, Edmonton

Editorial Reviews

"This is a timely collection that fills an important gap in our archive of the body. Readers and students across many disciplines will find it useful in making sense of a rapidly growing field of knowledge." --Veit Erlmann, University of Texas at Austin.

From the Publisher