Coming to (the History of) Our Senses: A New Methodology and Category of Analysis for Drug Historians?

Abstract

Coming to (the History of) Our Senses: A New Methodology and Category of Analysis for Drug Historians? by Kyle Bridge. Historians should not necessarily focus on sensory inputs, or even how they typically affect brains and bodies, but instead how historical actors interpret that sensory input and translate it into action. Having introduced sensory history as both a method and category of analysis, in this essay I hope to identify some ways that it might be applied to my own field of drug history. Another little-known specialization, this subject holds enormous potential for exploring sensory experience and its behavioral implications.

Keywords

• drug history
• sensory history
• sensory experience
• user experience
• memory