Short description:

In contrast to books which separate the five (or six, or seven) senses from one another, The Senses in Self, Culture, and Society is organized around intersecting themes within sociological and anthropological fields of study?such as "the senses and the self," "time, place, and the senses," "sensory order and social control" and so forth?by doing so, we appeal to a wide variety of scholars and students.

Long description:

The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture is the definitive guide to the sociological and anthropological study of the senses. Vannini, Waskul, and Gottschalk provide a comprehensive map of the social and cultural significance of the senses that is woven in a thorough analytical review of classical, recent, and emerging scholarship and grounded in original empirical data that deepens the review and analysis. By bridging cultural/qualitative sociology and cultural/humanistic anthropology, The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture explicitly blurs boundaries that are particularly weak in this field due to the ethnographic scope of much research. Serving both the sociological and anthropological constituencies at once means bridging ethnographic traditions, cultural foci, and socioecological approaches to embodiment and sensuousness. The Senses in Self,Society, and Culture is intended to be a milestone in the social sciences? somatic turn.

"An outstanding guide to the social study of the senses and an authoritative text for teaching the new and important turn to the body in the social sciences."?E. Doyle McCarthy, Sociology, Fordham University

"Wielding a fine balance between theory, method and empirical analyses, this book is a timely contribution to the field of sensory studies and an asset to sensory syllabi for instructors. Elegantly cutting across the various disciplines of sociology, anthropology, geography and other sciences, The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture offers a fascinating array of ethnographic case studies that furnish us with sophisticated and intelligible insights into the manner in which the senses operate in social life."?Kelvin Yow, Sociology, National University of Singapore

"Vannini, Waskul and Gottschalk take the study of the senses and sensation out of the psychology laboratory and into the streets, the wine festival, the bedroom, the kitchen. The authors clearly revel in their senses while studying them, and invite the student to do likewise. More than a textbook, this volume is an inspiring manifesto for a sociology of the senses."?David Howes, Anthropology, Concordia University

Table of Contents:

Selected Contents:Part 1: Understanding Sensory Studies. 1. Toward a Sociology of the Senses. 2 The Sensual Body. 3 Sensual Ritual and Performance. 4 Sensuous Scholarship. Part 2: Doing Sensory Research. 5. The Sensuous Self and Identity. 6. A Sense of Place, a Sense of Time. 7. The Sensory Order. 8. Media, Consumer, and Material Culture.