Sensorial Investigations

David Howes’s sweeping history of the senses in the disciplines of anthropology and psychology and in the field of law lays the foundations for a sensational jurisprudence, or a way to do justice to and by the senses of other people.In part 1, Howes demonstrates how sensory ethnography has yielded alternative insights into how the senses function and argues convincingly that each culture should be approached on its own sensory terms. Part 2 documents how the senses have been disciplined psychologically within the Western tradition, starting with Aristotle and moving through the rise of Lockean empiricism and cognitive neuroscience. Here, Howes presents an anthropologically informed critique of experimental and cognitive psychology, sensory science, and phenomenology. In part 3, he introduces the paradigm of the “historical anthropology of the senses and sensation” and applies it to the analysis of trade relations between Europe and China in the early modern period, to the treaty-making process in North America during the colonial period, and to all the unresolved disputes over land rights and Indigenous sovereignty that continue to this day, arguing that these differences are rooted in a cultural clash of sensoria.Designed for the classroom, Sensorial Investigations displays an expansive critical engagement with generations of scholarship. It is essential reading for students and scholars of the history and anthropology of the senses, the psychology of sensation, and socio-legal studies.

“David Howes is a leading figure in sensory studies. In this masterful work, he addresses an extraordinary array of topics and theories in uncovering the history of the legal, anthropological, and psychological dimensions of the senses. In showing how the senses are made, not given, Howes offers an expansive analysis that both links and extends each of these disciplines in unexpected ways.”—Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture, University of New South Wales Sydney, “This engaging and erudite book reminds us that the academy suffers, to a greater or lesser extent, from sensory deprivation. For David Howes, history and anthropology invite a crossing of cultures and disciplines through the senses. For the law, Howes advocates a ‘cross-cultural jurisprudence’ in which song, dance, and smell coexist with the written word. Sensorial Investigations celebrates ‘con-sensus’ rather than ways of knowing tied exclusively, and senselessly, to words on a page.”—Nicholas Kasirer, Justice, Supreme Court of Canada, “In Sensorial Investigations, David Howes shows how an anthropology of the senses deepens and expands our understanding of human history and potential. Meticulously exploring varieties of sensory experience, and challenging the universalizing reductions of social science, this book helps us learn more from difference. The investigations described and prescribed open an exciting vista for a sensorial mode of attention in the human sciences.”—Judith Farquhar, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, The University of Chicago, “Sensorial Investigations is a timely, exciting, and vitally important contribution to the interdisciplinary field of sensory studies, especially sensory anthropology and sensory history. Erudite and wide-ranging in scholarship, it is inventive in its argument and written in lively, engrossing prose by a leading light in the field.”—Peter Denney, author of The Senses in World History, “‘Neuroscientists need to get out of their own heads,’ David Howes says in introducing his rich and thought-provoking exploration of the sensorium. His bold project of crossing disciplines, cultures, and historical periods delivers a vision of the senses that takes us far beyond the narrow explorations of philosophy and the sciences.”—Raymond Tallis, author of Seeing Ourselves: Reclaiming Humanity from God and Science

David Howes is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Centre for Sensory Studies at Concordia University and Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at McGill University. His most recent publications include A Cultural History of the Senses in the Modern Age, 1920­–2000 and The Sensory Studies Manifesto.