Sense-Making: New Sensory Methods for Exploring the Past and Imagining Possible Futures

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Sheryl Boyle Genevieve Collins

Sense-Making

New Sensory Methods for Exploring the Past and Imagining Possible Futures

Sheryl Boyle, Genevieve Collins, David Howes (Concordia University, Canada.)

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English

Routledge
22 August 2025

The Arts: General & Reference; Museums & museology; Archaeological theory; Social & cultural anthropology

Series: Sensory Studies

In this highly innovative work, the senses are liberated from the confines of the present to serve as vehicles for accessing other historical periods and imagined futures. Sense-Making builds on the burgeoning field of sensory ethnography by introducing a pair of methodologies—sensory (re)construction and sensorial extrapolationCexpressly devised to facilitate time-travel.

The first part offers a survey and critique of extant work in sensory archeology and sensory futures. The second part presents a case study of sensory (re)construction in action, focusing on Thornbury Castle (1508—1521) in the UK. The third part probes the life of the senses on the ""final frontier"", the ""next habitat"" of humanity—namely, outer space. These sensory case studies are not purely architectural or purely futuristic. They are, at the same time, exercises in ""arts-based practice"" or ""research-creation,"" where the authors do not just carry out bibliographic research and write about pasts and futures, they make them.

Sense-Making is necessary reading for the international community of sensory studies scholars, as well as those with interests spanning material culture, museum and heritage studies, visual and auditory culture, experimental psychology, design and digital technology.

By: Sheryl Boyle, Genevieve Collins, David Howes (Concordia University, Canada.)
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 690g
ISBN: 9781032908373
ISBN 10: 1032908378
Series: Sensory Studies
Pages: 276
Publication Date: 22 August 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Sheryl Boyle is Director of the Carleton Sensory Architecture & Liminal Technology (CSALT) lab in Ottawa, Canada, where she supervises immersive materials research and innovative design and assembly processes. Genevieve Collins is completing a PhD in Social Anthropology with Visual Media from the University of Manchester, UK. She has worked in the arts and cultural industry of Winnipeg, Canada, and is the co-creative director of a film production company. David Howes is Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Co-Director of the Centre for Sensory Studies at Concordia University, Canada. In 2024, he was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada.

Reviews for Sense-Making: New Sensory Methods for Exploring the Past and Imagining Possible Futures

This book is required - and most engaging - reading for any historian interested in the “world of the works.” Worlds which in hermeneutics must be described in words, appear through sensory (re)creations by means of original methodologies, revealing in their immediacy a plurality of meanings that must be considered to truly understand the past. Sense-Making is also crucial to open up significant and hopeful alternative futures in our compromised world. This book makes uncommon sense. - Alberto Pérez-Gómez, O.C., Saidye R. Bronfman Professor Emeritus in Architecture, McGill University, Montreal