Knowing by Sensing

The senses offer scholars intriguing topics that transcend disciplinary, chronologic and geographic boundaries. But beyond this the senses are valuable methodological tools, that provide us with different types of knowledge than text and image alone can provide. In our digital and visually oriented age of social media and the internet, the senses and the body are undervalued and underestimated – especially in academia. Even when scholars study the senses, they are hesitant to engage with them: they remain the object of study, but aren’t considered informative in themselves.

This course teaches students to include the different senses in the production of knowledge, to train their sensory gaze, and to be able to describe sensory phenomena. The course addresses disciplines such as medicine, medical history, archaeology, (art-)history and non-academic
topics such as gastronomy, art and dance. An inter-disciplinary team of experts will address the sense of touch, smell, sight, taste, hearing, synesthesia and even our interoceptive senses (balance, weight, etc.). It challenges the classical hierarchy of the senses in which only sight
and hearing are considered aesthetic and informative tools. Senses, body and mind will work together to fundamentally transform the way in which we know, study and understand.

Caro Verbeek developed this course, which she taught from 2019 onwards with guest lectures by Hans Fidom, Piet Devos, Sandra Schouten, Cretien van Campen, Ilja Croijmans, Frank Bloem, Inger Leemans and guest coordination by Sophia Ehrich and Inger Leemans.

In this course medical, history, art, heritage and other students how to work on and through the senses.

Experience and knowledge are not mutually exclusive but part of a hermeneutic spiral of understanding and learning.