Historical Senses

For an assignment in one of my graduate classes at NC State, we were assigned to read several articles about the senses in relation to history. We all know the 5 senses: touching, smelling, hearing, seeing, tasting. We probably learned these many years ago in elementary school, and some of us may have even learned a song to help us remember them. I have never thought about the deeper use of the senses in history. Its just not something that was ever mentioned in any of my history courses. I guess it is just understood that we use our senses to make judgements and analyze situations. The readings were very interesting, and I would like to post several things that caught my attention while reading.

First, in James Cook's essay titled, Seeing the Visual in U.S. History, I was struck by his use of Mark Smith's quote that, "We have lost sight of other ways to understand beyond vision." Again, I have never given these ideas much thought, but he is completely right. We neglect so many of our other senses, and rely solely on our sight to make judgements, assumptions, and gain knowledge about people or places. Why is this? I guess because it is the easiest sense to put to use, and we use our sight 24/7. I guess this is one situation where being blind may give us a higher understanding of a situation, because people who are blind are forced to rely on their other senses. Ocularcentrism, vision being the primary sense, can be a problem when analyzing or describing historical events. Though vision is our primary way of taking in information, and providing information to others, we need to try to incorporate all senses into history, so that we get a more well-rounded, and full understanding of people, places, and events.

In Mark Smith's essay, "Getting in Touch with Slavery and Freedom" it surprised me when he states that not much is written about touch, and that many scholars see the non-visual senses as "unreliable or irrelevant." I cannot believe that people would consider touch to be unreliable. Our eyes can sometimes play tricks on us, but touch allows us to have a personal encounter with whatever it is we are seeing. Recently, my family went on a cruise to the Bahamas and I had the opportunity to go to Atlantis and swim with the dolphins (a highly recommended experience). I have never had an encounter with a dolphin before, but the thing I remember most is how soft they felt. I had imagined that they would feel like most other fish or sea life, slick or slimy, but they had the softest skin, It felt almost like velvet. This is one instance where touch became a primary sense for me. And in describing my experience, now and in the future, I will always mention how they felt. In reading Smith's essay, I had no idea the extent to which touch was used to understand slaves and slaveholders in the antebellum period. It was intriguing to read about how touch was used to evaluate character and status. It makes sense, hard labor would lead to hard, calloused skin, and many slaves were subject to hard labor and harsh living conditions. They would often have blisters after long days of work. Some historians have the opposite view, stating that Africans were genetically conditioned to withstand these kinds of conditions, but white people were the ones who ended up with the blistered hands. Slave buyers would even run their hands over the slaves at the market, to see if they were fit enough for work. This essay was very interesting to me, because touch is not one the senses I usually rely on.

The other 3 articles were interesting as well, and I had to go grab a bite to eat after reading the one on taste. It takes a special skill to write in ways that evoke taste, but there are many who apparently can! As the author suggests, understanding taste can help us understand a great deal about past generations and people groups. The same goes for Connie Chiang's essay on smell. Smell's can help the reader more fuller understand a time in history. Like the author suggests, there was a time when the smell of manure was a very common smell, or the smell of garbage or sewage in major cities. Smell helps us understand "historical change", as Chiang suggests. Even recent events, such as Hurricane Katrina can be better understood by using our sense of smell. Hearing is one sense that I can more easily relate too. I was a bluegrass minor at ETSU and took many music classes including the history of country music and American folk music. The sounds of the past, especially in music, can teach us a great deal about different eras in time and about the struggles people faced throughout history. It can also teach us a lot about how music has evolved and changed over the years, and how different cultures come together to create a unique sound, like bluegrass!

Senses can play a major role in helping us gain a deeper understanding of past and present events. Now that I am more aware of the roles my senses play, I think I will start using them a little more when attempting to understand the past.

I didn't realize until last night that there was a specific question we were to answer, so this is an edit to the original post.
I just realized we were supposed to answer a specific question for this post, so I will answer now! As far as how to study topics from the perspective the the five senses, I believe this helps the students have a better overall understand of an event, and in a way places them in the event where they can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the pieces that make the event whole. For example, if you use images and sounds, describe the smells, and the use of touch in historical events, such as the Holocaust, the students will get a better feeling of the event, and may be able to relate with what the people experiencing the event were feeling. The senses put us in a real place in which we can not only learn about something, but experience it to an extent.

As a follow up on this post, I believe it can be quite difficult to use the senses in instruction because of the amount of material that is to be covered in a short period of time. It would really add to the classroom experience to use these creative ways to engage students in the material. Using the senses to introduce the students to a topic, and to expand their knowledge can help them retain the information. I believe it also helps them understand how others may or may not have felt in a situation. The senses can play a major role in understanding material, you just have to know when and how to use them.