Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830). Study of hands. Date unknown. Red and black chalks on paper, 11.5 x 25.9 cm Given by the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum, 1972. PD.39-1972 © Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
Touching visions (part II). Gender and the intersensoriality of artefacts (programme)
Running hands over anatomical models to feel their shape; rubbing ointments on the body to test new drugs and cures; holding photographs close to inspect their intimate detail: touch is everywhere in how we come to understand and know the world – at the root of comprehension (a grasping together) and of the concept (a Begriff). Yet in neither the history of science nor the history of medicine, long prone to the “prioritising of vision,” do we possess the groundwork for a “comparative history of touch” (Maerker 2015, p. 286). Ranging from medieval to modern, from India through Japan to Peru, our workshop provides precisely this groundwork. Specifically, rather than simply substituting one sense for another – a history of touch for a history of sight – we seek to understand the intersensorial entanglement between touching and seeing. This entanglement, we argue, is best grasped through the analytic of gender.
Days: 2 and 3 June 2022
Place: Facultat de Geografia i Història (Universitat de València). Sala Alfons Cucó (6th floor)