ABSTRACT
The cultural history of the senses treats sensory experience as a historical formation. Recognizing the senses to be constructed by culture, as well as given by physiology, it seeks to discover the ways in which particular historical institutions, practices and developments shaped and were shaped by the sensory life of the time. The chapter takes a history-of-the-senses approach to the modern period to explore the sensory features of the age and illuminate the developments that played a fundamental role in transforming popular perceptions.
