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Senses and Medicine (1 post)

In the early modern period, before the advent of modern apparatus diagnostics, the senses played a major role in medicine of various cultures: practitioners and patients used their sensory organs as instruments to examine bodies and develop diagnoses. Since the 16th century, European practitioners have also used their sensory perceptions to establish an empirical basis for practising medicine scientifically, and for systematizing clinical cases and therapies.

Senses and Landscape (1 post)

The term landscape signifies a geographic area defined by natural and/or human-made features like plants, water bodies, land shapes, and land use. The concept, however, that emerged in the early modern period, shaped and was shaped by how humans experienced and interpreted their allegedly natural and built surroundings, highlighting insofar cultural and aesthetic layers beyond mere geographical distinctions. The cultural interpretation of landscape was therefore intrinsically linked to sensory perception.

Senses and the Mediterranean (1 post)

The Mediterranean has long taken a pivotal place for the ways in which it connected many important cities, the convergence of multiple cultures, and not least its imagined position as the cradle of modern Europe. Exploring how inhabitants of the region understood their senses and their role in ‚knowing’ the world can offer a new perspective on the early modern Mediterranean. A focus on the Mediterranean senses thus aims to uncover a new dimension of the Mediterranean as a cultural region beyond linguistic, religious, and regional boundaries.

Senses and the City (1 post)

In pre-modern cities, spatial and social density created a network of intense multi-sensory perceptions that influenced the formation and use of urban spaces and the perceptions of different religious and/or foreign people (‘sensory racism’). The interplay between sensory perception and urban environments can enhance our understanding of social stratifications, the meaning and design of public and religious spaces, and urban structures beyond the visible.

Theory and Methodology (1 post)

Sensory history is a rapidly evolving field that combines a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives. Still in the process of forming its own conceptual foundations, sensory history contributes to broader debates in historical theory by reconsidering the interplay between perception, embodiment, and knowledge in historical practice.


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