What we are reading

Research on the senses and the body is situated across a number of scholarly traditions. We are reading books and papers from across a range of disciplines including sociology, anthropology of the senses, the arts and socio-linguistics, philosophy, psychology, psycho-physics and neuroscience. These disciplines have, generally, neglected touch, in particular digital touch. There is a (surprisingly) small literature on non-digital touch for communication (e.g. handshakes, hugs or cross-cultural issues related to touch) and touch has received some attention as a ‘compensatory mode’ with reference to sign-systems for the visual and hearing impaired. Much of the work we are coming across sits at the margins or intersections of disciplines. Throughout the life of the project we will provide commentaries and reviews on the books and papers that we are reading.