The Embodied Senses
Thursday evening, Friday and Saturday, 25 to 27 May
"Things," wrote Montaigne, "are sensed through the understanding, understood through the senses." However, the nature, value, and reliability of sensory experience was a constant preoccupation in early modern culture. Debates about its character and the extent to which it can be expressed and communicated continue to this day. A growing body of recent scholarship seeks to historicize precisely what the senses do offer; this symposium considers ways to reconstruct how early modern people lived, felt, and sensed their way through life. Contributions are sought from those working on and developing all the ways of thinking about the embodied senses, sensory embodiment, and the evocation and reconstruction of sensory perception between c.1500 and c.1750. Relevant intellectual fields and approaches include early modern natural philosophy, religion, neuroscience, performance theory, selfhood, habitus, and re-enactment; artistic creation and performance (including a variety of media); modes of encounter with the world (including touch, infection, erotics, and eating); forms of expertise relating to the senses (including commerce, midwifery, healing, service, and technology); and sensory reception and retrieval (including seeing, hearing, reading, remembering, and feeling).
Please direct any questions to institute@folger.edu.
Provisional Schedule
Unless otherwise specified, all sessions take place in the Folger Board Room
Thursday, 25 May 2017
5:30 pm
- Opening reception (FR)
6:30-7:30
- Embodying Senses
- Bruce Smith, University of Southern California
- Laura Gowing, King’s College, London
- Mark Jenner, University of York
Friday, 26 May 2017
9:00 am
- Coffee and pastries
9:25
- Welcoming Remarks
9:30
- Sin and Sensation
- Elizabeth Harvey, University of Toronto
- Matthew Milner
11:00
- Coffee Break
11:30
- Accumulation and Play
- Shigehisa Kuriyama, Harvard University
- Joe Moshenska, Trinity College, Cambridge
1:00-2:30 pm
- Lunch on your own (suggestions provided in folders)
2:30
- Impersonating Voices
- Richard Wistreich, Royal College of Music, London
- Performers:
- Richard Wistreich, Royal College of Music, London
4:00
- Tea Break
4:30
- Music and Silence
- Amy Cook, Stony Brook University
- Simon Smith, University of Birmingham
Saturday, 27 May 2017
9:00 am
- Coffee and Pastries
9:30
- Sound, Smell, Space
- Niall Atkinson, University of Chicago
- Holly Dugan, The George Washington University
11:00
- Coffee Break
11:30
- Signs and Senses
- Mary Fissell, The Johns Hopkins University
- Lauren Kassell, Pembroke College, Cambridge University
1:00-2:30 pm
- Lunch on your own (suggestions provided in folders)
2:30
- Calibrating Subjectivity and Objectivity
- Carla Mazzio, University at Buffalo, SUNY
- Steven Shapin, Harvard University
4:00
- Closing Session
5:30
- Reception (Founders’ Room, Folger Shakespeare Library)