A Cultural History of the Senses in the Age of Enlightenment

Anne C. Vila is Professor of French in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. She is the author of Enlightenment and Pathology: Sensibility in the Literature and Medicine of Eighteenth-century France (1998), as well as many articles on the body in the culture of the Enlightenment. She is currently completing a book entitled Singular Beings: Passions and Pathologies of the Scholar in France, 1720-1840.

Introduction: Powers, Pleasures, and Perils of the Senses in the Enlightenment Era Anne C.Vila (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)
1. The Social Life of the Senses: A New Approach to Eighteenth-Century Politics and Public Life Sophia Rosenfeld (University of Virginia, USA)
2. Urban Sensations: Motion and Commotion in Eighteenth-Century Cities Clare Brant (King’s College London, UK)
3. The Senses in the Marketplace: Coffee, Chintz, and Sofas Joan DeJean (University of Pennsylvania, USA)
4. The Senses In Religion: Listening To God in the Eighteenth Century Phyllis Mack (Rutgers University, USA)
5. The Senses in Philosophy and Science: Blindness and Insight Lissa Roberts (University of Twente, the Netherlands)
6. Medicine and the Senses: The Perception of Essences Patrick Singy (Union College, USA)
7. The Senses in Literature: Pleasures of Imagining in Poetry and Prose Rowan Rose Boyson (King's College London, UK)
8. Art and the Senses: Experiencing the Arts in the Age of Sensibility Sarah Cohen (University at Albany, SUNY, USA) and Downing A. Thomas (University of Iowa, USA)
9. Sensory Media: The Enlightenment in the Atlantic World Richard Cullen Rath (University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, USA)
Notes
Bibliography
Notes on contributors
Index