The Colour of Angels uncovers the gender politics behind our attitude to the senses. Using a wide variety of examples, ranging from the sensuous religious visions of the middle ages through to nineteenth-century art movements, this book reveals a previously unexplored area of womens history.
Recenzijos
'With the blend of erudition and elegance we have now come to expect, Constance Classen's The Colour of Angels does much to restore the history of the senses to its proper importance.' - Roy Porter, Wellcome Institute
'It is a solid and imaginative contribution to both the history of the senses as well as to feminist scholarship from the middle ages up to the rise of modernism.' - Henry Luce, The University of Chicago
Illustrations
viii
Acknowledgements
ix
Introduction
1
(10)
PART I Cosmology
11
(50)
On the color of angels: the sensory cosmologies of St. Hildegard, Boehme, and Fourier
13
(23)
The breath of God: sacred histories of scent
36
(25)
PART II Gender
61
(46)
The scented womb and the seminal eye: embodying gender codes through the senses
63
(23)
Pens and needles: writing, women's work, and feminine sensibilities
86
(21)
PART III Aesthetics
107
(54)
Symbolist harmonies, Futurist colors, Surrealist recipes: crossing sensory borders in the arts
109
(29)
A feel for the world: lessons in aesthetics from the blind
138
(23)
Notes
161
(48)
Bibliography
209
(20)
Index
229
Constance Classen is a cultural historian whose previous publications include Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and Across Cultures and Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell (with David Howes and Anthony Synnott).
