August 2010 Blog Posts (6)

The senses are very powerful. Too often history is seen as being static and not interesting, especially by students who do not see how

it impacts them. They want something

that appeals to those powerful senses.

Teachers can use this to teach in the classroom. They can bring in…

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After reading the roundtable essays on senses in history I came to the conclusion that the senses can be a great teaching tool for the classroom. It can not replace the traditional textbook approach because the end of year test will not ask, What did the civil war smell like? However, a smell, sound, or touch, can help a student remember a certain fact about a historical event. The touch of an army uniform can help…

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I think we all have a general feeling about how history is usually taught; you study names, dates, and important events that have led to where we currently are. However, this information generally feels out of touch and disconnected from the present, and it's often difficult to make the connection that people alive in the past had many of the same experiences that we have.

I've been reviewing several articles on sensory history listed in…

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My attention and thinking about the topic of discussion this week was immediately drawn to the foul smells and seemingly poor hygiene found in the early nineteenth century. I decided before I read the articles that I did not want to even imagine the smells during that particular period of time. However, as I read through the articles, my thought process was expanded to include hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, and yes, smelling as formidable evidence in historical inquiry.

As Chiang… Continue

Smell. Taste. Touch. Sound. These are not necessarily senses that many have associated with history in the past, but they have received increasing interest in the second half of the 20th century in regards to the study of the Social Sciences. History is the study of the past, but taking from the original Greek, it means knowledge acquired through inquiry or investigation. If we look at history as an investigation, why should we not use all the senses in order to come up with the most accurate… Continue

History quite often ignores the majority of the senses, particularly sound, smell, touch, and taste.

Yet, these senses can tell an entirely different history than the typical written, factual, ocularcentric story we are accustomed to. Senses are the tools we use to interpret the world around us every day; it would appear to make sense to utilize these same tools in attempting to gain an understanding of the past. The Roundtable…

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