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ABSTRACTS
| Jeremy Popkin, "Worlds Turned Upside Down: Bourgeois Experience in the 19th-Century Revolutions"
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With the advantage of hindsight, historians have concluded that France's bourgeoisie enjoyed a solid hegemony throughout the nineteenth century, despite the period's periodic political crises. At the time, however, members of the bourgeoisie did not feel this sense of security. The writings of the Lyonnais doctor, historian and librarian Jean-Baptiste Monfalcon make it possible to understand the shock that the crises of 1830,1848, and 1870–1871 caused for those who saw themselves as upholders of social order. Each of these revolutionary crises jeopardized life projects to which Monfalcon had devoted years of effort. Although Monfalcon finally died peacefully in 1874, still occupying the library post he had struggled to keep since the early 1840s, each of France's national crises had forced him to spend years of energy fighting both to safeguard his own position and that of his social class. Thanks to this unusually articulate witness, we can gain new insights into the mentality of France's middle classes during the period from the Restoration to the early years of the Third Republic.
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| Mark M. Smith, "Producing Sense, Consuming Sense, Making Sense: Perils and Prospects for Sensory History"
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What is "sensory history," why is it important, and what are some of the promises and pitfalls of the "habit" of inquiry? This article addresses these issues in an effort to initiate sustained dialogue among historians on how to investigate the history of the sensate, how to present it, and how to go beyond current conventions.
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| Clare Corbould, "Streets, Sounds, and Identity in Interwar Harlem"
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Harlem was never entirely a "black" neighborhood. White landlords, shopkeepers, policemen, and visitors abounded. In the 1920s and 1930s, Harlem's African American residents made it seem theirs, however, through the use of sound. What white visitors found "noisy"—whether they were excited or repelled by it—marked out the territory, as it were. Sounds ranged from special events including parades and funerals, to everyday activities such as street speaking and hanging out. This use of public space had as its analogue the formation of a black public sphere. Members of this counter-public sphere, including those associated with the Harlem Renaissance, defined themselves as aural beings, rather than as individuals oriented by sight. Debate erupted frequently within this sphere as to what was appropriate sound or noise, on the streets and especially in political and social agitation. The multiplicity of voices was ultimately the defining characteristic of the black public sphere, and of black modernity itself.
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| Constance Classen, "Museum Manners: The Sensory Life of the Early Museum"
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Many contemporary museums are challenging the traditional "hands off" ethos of the museum with innovative, interactive exhibitions. Yet such exhibitions are still exceptions to the rule of sensory restraint which is generally expected to govern the behaviour of museum visitors. Artifacts for the most part are only to be seen—not felt, smelt, sounded and certainly not tasted. Yet, this rule of sensory restraint is not intrinsic to the museum. Accounts of visits to early museums indicate that visitors interacted with and learned about the exhibits on display through all of their senses. Such multisensory interaction was not simply due to lax regulations, but was motivated by a range of social customs as well as by contemporary aesthetic and scientific norms. The present exploration of the sensory life of the early museum enlarges our understanding of the social history of museums and also contributes to the developing fields of the history and anthropology of the senses.
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| Hera Cook, "Sexuality and Contraception in Modern England: Doing the History of Reproductive Sexuality". . . |
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