Dear Adrian,
it looks like an interesting series, but 'ocularcentrism' is, I think, a
red herring - or perhaps I should say blind alley. Jay's book offers
impressive encapsulations of modern French thought, but its central idea (a
bit contradictory, perhaps, that it should have one at all) is even by the
author's own account without clear consequence. It certainly will profit
nobody to become self-conscious about the use of vision-based metaphors:
blind and partially-sighted people have no inhibitions about saying 'I
see', meaning 'I understand' and neither should anyone else. Were we to
abandon this concept we would be neither worse nor better off - though more
probably the latter - in our studies of embodiment. I do not mean by this
to suggest that the cultural status of vision oughtn't to be a subject of
study - quite the contrary. But for that to be possible, and for Jay's book
to have any use,we should take the term he coined as a stimulus to enquiry,
rather than as naming a foregone conclusion. Besides which, in a way, to
place an emphasis on the 'other senses' in compensating for the preeminence
of vision is to risk inventing new kinds of instrumentalisation and
disembodiment: rival specialisations or reifications.
With best wishes, Brendan Prendeville
--On 17 May 2007 11:16:37 +0100 Adrian Harris <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm forwarding news of what looks like a very interesting seminar series
> on the senses:
>
> "The study of ‘SenseScapes’ is a newly emerging interdisciplinary
> field focussing on sensorial studies of human interaction with physical
> environments". Registration is now taking place for the second seminar
> ‘Senses and Architecture’ in the ESRC funded research seminar series
> ‘Rethinking the urban experience: the sensory production of place’.
> Further details can be found at http://www.sensescapes.co.uk/
>
> I note that although the series seeks to challenge "ocular-centricism",
> they are "focussing on sensorial studies" and I, quite unintentionally,
> wrote that it "looks" interesting. Clearly challenging ocular-centricism
> will take a while! Excuse my flippant tone - I'm actually making a
> serious point here about how ocular-centricism could continue to hamper
> the development of embodiment studies: If we keep looking to see what
> embodiment might show us, we might never grasp the texture of that space.
>
> Cheers!
> Adrian
> <http://www.sensescapes.co.uk/>
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