Senses, Affect and Embodied Ethnography
Deborah Kapchan / deborah.kapchan@nyu.edu
Performance Studies, Wednesdays 9:30-12:15
Office Hours Wednesdays 1-2; Thursdays 1-2 and by app’t
In this course we consider several approaches to the study of affect and the senses, paying
particular attention to how an analysis of the senses elucidates and refines theories of
perception, performance and culture. After a philosophical introduction to the
epistemology of sensuousness (Merleau-Ponty, Schutz, Jackson) several approaches will
be presented within a broad philosophical framework that juxtaposes social scientific,
humanistic, and performance studies approaches to cultural analysis. We will then
analyze how authors use ethnographic description as a way to implicitly construct new
approaches to representation, thinking, as well as sonic and embodied experience.
For each week of the course, one student will present an in-depth critique of the major
reading. This presentation will be a springboard for more general debate of issues
germane to the themes. Evaluations will be based on these in-depth critiques (one per
student) as well as an article-length paper, to be presented to the seminar and turned in at
the end of the semester
Required Texts
Desjarlais, Robert 2003. Sensory Biographies: Lives and Deaths Among Nepal’s Yolmo
Buddhists. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hahn, Tomie. 2007. Sensational Knowledge—Embodying Culture through Japanese
Dance. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Howes, David 2003. Sensual Relations: Engaging the Senses in Culture and Social
Theory. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Jackson, Michael 1998. At Home in the World. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Lepecki, André and Sally Banes, eds. 2006. The Senses in Performance.. London and
New York: Routledge,
Stewart, Kathleen. 2007. Ordinary Affects. Durham: Duke University Press.
Stoller, Paul. 1999 Jaguar: A Story of Africans in America. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press.
Books and Articles on Reserve
Feld, Steven, 1982. Sound and Sentiment
Friedson, Steven 1996. Dancing Prophets
Geurts, Kathryn. 2002. Culture and the Senses
Jackson, Michael (ed) 1996. Things as They Are
Jackson, Michael. Minima Ethnographica 1997
Luckman, Thomas. 1978. Phenomenology and Sociology
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Signs.
Roseman, Marina 1991. Healing Sounds from the Malaysian Rainforest