CfP: The Routledge History of the Senses

Co Editors:

Andrew Kettler, Kenyon College

William Tullett, Anglia Ruskin University

Prompt:

The Routledge History of the Senses, contracted and expected to be in print for 2024, will summarize the existing field of the history of the senses and provide a space for explorations of ongoing research. The history of the senses became prominent within historical study during the 1990s and was methodologically based upon earlier inspirational work that combined anthropological questions of cultural learning with the radical tones of social history. As it has expanded, the field has provided – and continues to provide – a considerable space for the exploration of diverse historical topics through the lens of sensory experience and phenomenological interpretation. The central focus of this edited volume is a global history of the senses. As such, this CFP desires a wide range of authors working in Sensory History and Sensory Studies.

We are specifically looking for authors interested in writing two types of pieces.

The first group will complete larger historiographical essays of 10,000 words focused on sight, touch, smell, sound, taste, and other sensory worlds. Authors interested in writing one of these six chapters should be able to create a succinct reading of a wide range of interdisciplinary material focused on understanding considerably long historical trajectories of the senses.

The second group of authors will complete shorter essays that offer brief historiographical entries and an opportunity to promote their own research. Each of these smaller, 6,000 word, essays includes a topic of the author’s choosing after consultation with the editors, and a brief historiographical background for that topic.

Examples include focused subjects underneath the guiding sections of: Gender, Sexuality, and the Senses; Religion, Faith, Spiritualism; Race, Racism, Ethnicity, and the Senses; Class, Social Spaces, and the Senses; Governance, Law, Power, and the Senses; Remembrance, Reclamation, Re-enactment and Reconstruction; Science, Medicine, and the Senses; Media, Technology, and the Senses; Emotions and the Senses; Military and Diplomacy. As a global history we are seeking authors from a wide range of regions who can provide historical case studies that also illustrate historiographies of Sensory Studies.

If you are interested in contributing to this volume, please e-mail smellhistory@gmail.com. The deadline for initial e-mails of interest, including a CV and a short statement concerning the type of article and the specific sensory history you are interested in working with, is July 1 of 2022. Please place a subject heading of “Routledge History of the Senses” for that e-mail. After confirmation of topics and e-mail consultation on the focus of the essays, initial drafts will be due January 1 of 2023.