Book description
Touch is the first sense to develop in the womb, yet often it is
overlooked. The Senses of Touch examines the role of touching and
feeling as part of the fabric of everyday, embodied experience. How can
we think about touch? Problems of touch and tactility run as a
continuous thread in philosophy, psychology, medical writing and
representations in art, from Ancient Greece to the present day. Picking
through some of these threads, the book 'feels' its way towards writing
and thinking about touch as both sensory and affective experience.
Taking a broadly phenomenological framework that traces tactility from
Aristotle through the Enlightenment to the present day, the book
examines the role of touch across a range of experiences including
aesthetics, digital design, visual impairment and touch therapies. The
Senses of Touch thereby demonstrates the varieties of sensory
experience, and explores the diverse range of our 'senses' of touch.
Mark Paterson is Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Exeter.
