IMC 2014: Sessions
Session 703: Senses and Stenches
Tuesday 8 July 2014, 14.15-15.45
| Sponsor: | State University of New York, Oneonta |
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| Organiser: | April Harper, Department of History, State University of New York, Oneonta |
| Moderator/Chair: | Ben Parsons, School of English, University of Leicester |
| Paper 703-a | Cold in Medieval Travel Writing (Language: English) Index terms: Anthropology, Geography and Settlement Studies |
| Paper 703-b | Stench in the City (Language: English) Index terms: Demography, Economics - Urban |
| Paper 703-c | The Devil's Fart (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - French or Occitan |
| Abstract | What role do sensory descriptions play in art, city life, and in medieval travellers's accounts of Orient? Undoubtedly, sight was the most important sense for travellers seeking to portray distant places and peoples. Yet tastes, smells, sounds, and textures also had their parts to play in Europeans's tales of experience and encounter at home and abroad. These papers examine medieval travel writing, descriptions of city life, and gender relations from the 12th to 15th centuries, seeking evocations of the four lesser senses and considering their literary effects. In particular, it explores diversity in sensory evocation. |