Uncommon Senses II: Art, Technology, Education, Law, Society - and Sensory Diversity

The conference is organized around three broad topic areas:

• Crossing sensory borders in the arts: The rise of multisensory aesthetics and new media art
• Alternative pedagogies: The education of the senses
• Law and the regulation of the senses

“The sensorium is a fascinating focus for cultural studies,” wrote Walter J. Ong in “The Shifting Sensorium” (1991). Ong’s words heralded the arrival of sensory studies, an interdisciplinary field of inquiry which takes a cultural approach to the study of the senses and a sensory approach to the study of culture. Sensory studies has galvanized much exciting and provocative research and experimentation in the humanities and social sciences and visual and performing arts over the past three decades.

Uncommon Senses II aims to take stock of the many advances in sensuous scholarship and art practice since the first Uncommon Senses conference at Montreal’s Concordia University in 2000.

Caroline Jones, Professor of Art History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will give the keynote address.

Uncommon Senses II is hosted by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture. It is co-sponsored by the Centre for Sensory Studies, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Department of Art Education and Milieux Institute, with the participation of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and additional financial support from the Office of the Dean, Arts and Science.

This event will take place on the 11th floor of the EV building and the 9th floor of the MB building.

Learn how to register and find out more.