Sensory studies is an interdisciplinary field connecting insights from history, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, religion, literature, and art to the scientific study of human perception. Though research in this field draws upon a wide variety of methodologies and focuses on different historical periods and geographical areas, it is unified through a core tenet: that the human sensorium is as much a cultural, historical, and aesthetic phenomenon as it is an environmental and a biological one. Social mores, geographies, religious beliefs, and individual abilities shape perception in uniquely cultural ways. Put more succinctly, sensory studies, as a field, argues for the cultural study of the senses and the sensuous study of culture. And language is squarely at the center of scholarly questions about perception; literary studies thus provides useful methodological tools for understanding not only how we represent visceral experiences (such as sensation) to others through language but also how these strategies have changed over time. The study of literature and the senses emphasizes the important role of language in representing visceral experience and the important role of aesthetics and history in shaping literary representations.
Determining Which Cooking Method Provides the Best Sensory Differentiation of Potatoes
