|
|
 |
ODYSSEY
Special Series: The History of the Senses
Odyssey is presenting a special series on the history of the senses. The senses—hearing, taste, smell, touch, and sight—guide us through our daily interactions in the world. The way our senses operate is often described in biological terms. But the senses have a social history as well. Ideas about how the senses function and how they serve us, have evolved over time and shape the way we interpret the information our senses collect. What forces—social, technological, cultural—affect the way we think about our senses? Over five consecutive Tuesdays, Odyssey examines each of the senses. Each program in the series highlights one sense and explores some of the meanings we apply to it.
Schedule and Audio Library
 |
Hearing
May 17, 2005
Jonathan Sterne—Assistant Professor of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University
Emily Thompson—Associate Professor of History, University of California, San Diego
Every day, we're immersed in the sounds of technology: traffic, cell phone chatter, white noise. As technology changes what we hear, does it also affect how we hear it?
Jonathan Sterne and historian Emily Thompson join Chicago Public Radio's Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Sterne is author of The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Thompson is author of The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900–1933. |
| |
|
|
Taste
May 24, 2005
Denise Gigante—Assistant Professor of English, Stanford University
Carolyn Korsmeyer—Chair, Department of Philosophy; State University of New York, Buffalo
Our sense of taste isn't just about food. It's also about preferences: someone can have good taste in art or bad taste in clothes. What kinds of connections exist between our gustatory pleasures and aesthetic judgments?
Carolyn Korsmeyer and Denise Gigante join Chicago Public Radio's Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Korsmeyer is author of Making Sense of Taste: Food and Philosophy. Gigante is author of Taste: A Literary History, and she's editing the anthology, Gusto: Essential Writings in Nineteenth-century Gastronomy. |
| |
|
|
Smell
May 31, 2005
William Cohen—Associate Professor of English, University of Maryland, College Park
Mark Smith—Carolina Distinguished Professor of History, University of South Carolina
We're pretty comfortable dividing the world into good and bad smells. But noses aren't impartial. Things that smell bad are often feared and associated with filth, disease, even foreignness. What kind of cultural baggage do our noses carry?
Historian Mark Smith and literary scholar William Cohen join Chicago Public Radio's Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Smith is author of Listening to Nineteenth Century America, and he's finishing the book, How Race Is Made: Slavery, Segregation, and the Senses. Cohen is coeditor of the anthology, Filth: Dirt, Disgust, and Modern Life.
|
| |
|
|
Touch
June 7, 2005
Steven Connor—Professor of Modern Literature and Theory, Birkbeck College, London
Elizabeth Harvey—Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies, University of Toronto
We feel our way around the world using touch. But a poem or movie can be touching. And we try to stay in touch with friends and family. What kind of relationships—physical, emotional, even imaginary—do we establish through touch?
Literary scholars Elizabeth Harvey and Steven Connor join Chicago Public Radio's Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Harvey is author of Sensible Flesh: On Touch in Early Modern Culture. Connor is author of The Book of Skin and Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism. |
| |
|
|
Vision
June 14, 2005
Jessica Riskin—Assistant Professor of History, Stanford University
Srdjan Smajic—Professor of English, Furman University
We use all of our senses to navigate and understand the world, but we seem to insist that seeing is believing. Our eyes can play tricks on us—through optical illusions or hallucinations—so what are we to make of the things we see?
Literary scholar Srdjan Smajic and historian of science Jessica Riskin join Chicago Public Radio's Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Smajic is working on the book, Genres of Sight: Vision and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Ghost and Detective Fiction. Riskin is author of Science in the Age of Sensibility: The Sentimental Empiricists of the French Enlightenment, and she's finishing the book, Mind Out of Matter: A History of the Quest for a Conscious Machine. |
|
Now Playing:
There are many ways to support Chicago Public Radio.
