David Howes

Concordia University · Centre for Sensory Studies

Ways of Sensing is a stimulating exploration of the cultural, historical and political dimensions of the world of the senses. The book spans a wide range of settings and makes comparisons between different cultures and epochs, revealing the power and diversity of sensory expressions across time and space. The chapters reflect on topics such as the...

In “Anthropology and the Study of Religion,” Roger McDonnell discusses an informal experiment that provides an illuminating introduction to the complex issues raised by any attempt to treat sensation as an object of study. The experiment involved playing a sound recording to two groups of people—an introductory psychology class and some Inuit on Ba...

11 y a une connexion intrins6que entre I'olfaction et la transition, c'est-8-dire, le changement de catkgories. Etant donnk que cette association se retrouve dans le contexte des divers rites de passage 8 travers le monde, elle semble Otre universelle. C'est a cause du fait que les odeurs 6mannent toujours de leurs objets, et qu'habituellement elle...

In this article, we outline the importance of a medical anthropology of sensations for theories of psychopathology and psychological healing. We define what is meant by ;sensation' (differentiating monomodal and polymodal sensations) and describe some of the mechanisms that generate and amplify sensations. We propose the heuristic use of the concep...

In their introduction to Law in the Domains of Culture , Austin Sarat and Thomas Kearns write: “[l]aw and legal studies are relative latecomers to cultural studies. To examine [law in the domains of culture] has been, until recently, a kind of scholarly transgression.” The same could be said in reverse: cultural studies (including anthropology) are...

With audacious dexterity, David Howes weaves together topics ranging from love and beauty magic in Papua New Guinea to nasal repression in Freudian psychology and from the erasure and recovery of the senses in contemporary ethnography to the specter of the body in Marx. Through this eclectic and penetrating exploration of the relationship between s...

Examines the Trobriands Oedipus controversy, paying special attention to the evidence of the senses. The sensory organization of the Trobriand psyche during the period ranging from infancy to the end of adolescence differs in certain important respects from that of the Western psyche. A comparison of the primal scene from conventional Freudian theo...

Acknowledgements Introduction: The Meaning and Power of Smell Part I: In Search of Lost Scents 1. The Aromas of Antiquity 2. Following the Scent: From the Middle Ages to Modernity Part II: Explorations in Olfactory Difference 3. Universes of Odour 4. The Rites of Smell Part III: Odour, Power and Society 5. Odour and Power: The Politics of Smell 6....

Résumé L'arôme de la marchandise La commercialisation de l'olfactif Cet article montre comment la relation qu'entretiennent les Nord-Américains avec leur corps se fait maintenant par l'entremise de divers articles de toilette (savon, déodorant, rince-bouche) qui offrent au consommateur une protection contre le rejet social en éliminant ou en suppri...

Résumé Le sens sans parole : vers une anthropologie de l'odorat L'article adopte l'idée que le symbolisme des odeurs occupe un espace à mi-distance entre le sensoriel et l'intelligible, entre le stimulus pur et simple et la représentation culturelle (le concept). Une distinction est faite entre les cultures odoriphiles, qui valorisent l'odorat comm...

L'auteur décrit les formes et le sens de la "prestation totale" dans le contexte social de l'archipel Tanimbar. Pour ce qui est de la forme, il démontre que l'échange se réalise selon deux axes, l'un reposant sur l'alliance matrimoniale et, l'autre, sur des liens fraternels. Tandis que les relations entre les partenaires unis par l'alliance matrimo...