The Expanding Field of Sensory Studies// David Howes.

"In “Sociology of the Senses” ([1921] 1997), he (Georg Simmel) related the general perplexity and lonesomeness of the modern urban subject to the “great[er] preponderance of occasions to see rather than to hear people.” {n7}Contrary to the country village, where people typically exchange glances and greet each other when out walking, in the city people are forced to spend long periods staring absently and keeping silent while riding on a street car or other public transport. And when a gaze chances to light upon a face, that face can appear to reveal too much about the individual, making the observer feel uneasy. At the same time, faces are notoriously difficult to read, particularly in the absence of conversation, which adds to the urban dweller’s feelings of perplexity and isolation. Whence the cultivation of indifference as a coping mechanism: better to be blasé."

"The question of the classification of the senses is another area that has attracted increased attention of late, as evidenced by The Sixth Sense Reader (Howes 2009). The five-sense sensorium is said to have been invented by Aristotle, though some would credit Democritus instead (Jütte 2005). Aristotle’s enumeration enjoyed great authority, but this did not prevent it from being challenged by those who lobbied for other senses to be recognized, such as the genital organs, the heart, the sense of beauty, the muscle sense or kinaesthesia, and the vomeronasal organ (also known as Jacobson’s Organ), to mention but a few (Classen 1993: 1-4; Jütte 2005: chs. 2, 3; Kivy 2003; Wade 2009; Watson 1999). The list continues (see www.sixthsensereader.org)."

"Among the Suyà of Brazil, pubescent boys and girls are fitted with ear-discs during their respective initiation ceremonies, but only senior men are permitted to be fitted with lip-discs. These body modifications express the importance attached to the faculties of hearing and speaking in Suyà culture. They function in the same way as such technological extensions of the senses as the telephone and the microscope function to channel perception along modality-specific lines. Male chiefs are further distinguished by their powers of listening and strident voices, whereas witches (who tend to be female) are said to be hard of hearing, prone to mumble and ascribed extraordinary powers of vision, such as being able to see at a distance, instead. The Suyà do not decorate the eyes, because for them vision is an anti-social faculty. Significantly, all of their major ceremonies take place at night, a time of diminished visibility and heightened aurality (Howes 1991: 175-77)."

"The senses are not simply passive receptors. They are interactive, both with the world and each other.

Perception is not solely a mental or physiological phenomenon. “The perceptual is cultural and political” (Bull et al 2006: 5).

The limits of one’s language are not the limits of one’s world, pace Wittgenstein (1922), for the senses come before language and also extend beyond it.

The senses collaborate, but they may also conflict. The unity of the senses should not be presupposed, pace Merleau-Ponty (1962).

The senses are commonly hierarchized, with higher ranked groups being associated with the “higher” senses and what are considered refined (or neutral) sensations.

No account of the senses in society can be complete without mention being made of sensory differentiation, for example, by gender, class, ethnicity.

“The senses are everywhere” (Bull et al. 2006: 5). They mediate the relationship between idea and object, mind and body, self and society, culture and environment.

Each culture elaborates its own ways of understanding and using the senses. No one sensory model will fit all."

Full essay: http://www.sensorystudies.org/sensorial-investigations/the-expanding-field-of-sensory-studies/