Book of Touch

Constance Classen is the author of Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and Across Cultures, and The Color of Angels: Cosmology, Gender and the Aesthetic Imagination, among other works.

"This encyclopaedic collection of writings on touch places the subject at the very centre of culture, sociality and technology. A valuable resource which should interest all of those seeking to embody our understanding of human experience, action and society. - Chris Shilling, University of Portsmouth, UKThe Book of Touch provides a fulfilling and imaginative traversal of the many landscapes of touch. Constance Classen's deft introductions provide both context for, and commentary on, a constellation of texts - academic and literary, historical and contemporary - whose appearance makes a major contribution to the burgeoning study of the senses. - Tim Barringer, Yale University, USAGet your hands on The Book of Touch. Constance Classen has put together a wonderfully varied anthology on the cultural formations of tactility across vast expanses of time and place. Standing as a sourcebook on everything from kissing to healing to wrestling to scratching, it is without rival. - Leigh E."

• Acknowledgments Fingerprints: Writing About Touch - Constance Classen, Concordia University, CanadaPart I: ContactContact - Constance Classen, Concordia University, CanadaHandshakes Tactile Communication - Ruth Finnegan, Open University, UKThe Social Kiss Skinscapes: Embodiment, Culture and Environment - David Howes, Concordia University, CanadaTouch in the Classroom Handling Children: To Touch or Not to Touch? -Anthony Synnott, Concordia University, CanadaThe Quiet Flow of Touch The American Touch: Tactile Imagery in American Religion and Politics - David Chidester, University of Capetown, South AfricaPart II: PleasurePleasure - Constance Classen, Concordia University, Canada I Want to Hold Your Hand The Pleasures of Touch - Yi-Fu Tuan Thermal Delight Homely Pleasures: The Pursuit of Comfort in the Eighteenth Century - John E. Crowley, Dalhousie University, CanadaScratching Where It Itches Bourgeois Love: Mabel Loomis Todd - Peter Gay The Caress Desiring Touch in Sartre and Beauvoir - Penelope Deutscher, Northwestern University, USAThe Touch of God Part III: PainPain - Constance Classen, Concordia University, CanadaSpeaking of Pain The Language of Pain in India - Judy Pugh, Michigan State University, USAHeadaches The Tortures of the Inquisition and the Invention of Modern Guilt - Ariel Glucklich, Georgetown University, USAStoicism Primate Experiments: Harry Harlow and the Technology of Love - Donna Haraway, University of California at Santa Cruz, USAThe Pangs of Rejection Sex, Pain and the Marquis de Sade - David B. Morris, University of Virginia, USA Part IV: Male BondingMale Bonding - Constance Classen, Concordia University, Canada “Threads of Manly Friendship” The Men’s House: Touching and Wrestling among Mehinaku Men - Thomas Gregor, Vanderbilt University, USAHandymen The Imperial Touch: Schooling Male Bodies in Colonial India, Part I - C.E. Tyndale-Biscoe The Imperial Touch: Schooling Male Bodies in Colonial India, Part II - Satadru Sen, Washington University, USASchool of Hard Knocks Sexuality and the Drill: The Body Reconstructed in the Military Academy - Klaus Theweleit, Freiburg University, GermanyWarrior Love The Dying Kiss: Intimacy and Gender in the Trenches of the First World War - Santanu Das, Cambridge University, UKA Hard Man is Good to Find Part V: Women’s TouchWomen’s Touch - Constance Classen, Concordia University, Canada Women’s Work Saarak’s Crisis: Childbirth and Weaning in an Inuit Community - Jean Briggs, Memorial University of Newfoundland, CanadaBinding Women in China Nu Shu: Female Writing in China Wang Ping, Macalester College, USAFeminine Tactics: Crafting an Alternative Aesthetics in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries - Constance Classen, Concordia University, Canada Throwing Like a Girl Seamstress and Marketwoman: Working Women in Early Twentieth-century Paris - Madeleine Henrey The Mosaic Makers - Karli Whitmore Warrior Women Part VI: ControlControl - Constance Classen, Concordia University, Canada When Can a Man Touch a Woman? On Medieval Manners - Norbert Elias Don’t Touch the Art! Touch in the Museum - Constance Classen, Concordia University, Canada Hands Off! Spouse Beating Bourgeois Perception: The Gaze and the Contaminating Touch- Peter Stallybrass, University of Pennsylvania, USA and Allon White Untouchable In a Victorian Prison: Privations of the Flesh - Philip Priestley Security Crises Part VII: Uncommon TouchUncommon Touch - Constance Classen, Concordia University, Canada Fire in the Mind Phantom Touch in “The Case of George Dedlow” - S. Weir Mitchell Still Life Autism and “The Squeeze Machine” - Temple Grandin Pure Touch Rainfall and the Blind Body - John Hull Balancing Acts Tactilism - F. T. Marinetti What’s Going On In There? Visceral Perception - Drew Leder, Layola College in Maryland, USA Nightmare Touch Part VIII: Tactile TherapiesTactile Therapies - Constance Classen, Concordia University, Canada Dr Touch Magical Healing: The King’s Touch - Keith Thomas Sweat Baths Ayurvedic Medicine and the History of Massage - S. V. Govindan Breathing Spaces: Qigong and Healing - Nancy N. Chen, University of California at Santa Cruz, USAThe Healing Paw A Touch of Danger: The Bedside Manners of the Eighteenth-century Physician - Roy Porter Domesticating Madwomen The Golden Age of Electrotherapy - Caroline Thomas de la Peña, University of California at Davis, USAThe Immune System Part IX: Touch and TechnologyTouch and Technology - Constance Classen, Concordia University, Canada The Mechanized Body Polishing Your Heart: Artisans and Machines in Japan - Dorinne Kondo Modernist Fictions of Speed - Sara Danius, Uppsala University, Sweden Nerve Endings Grasping the Image: How Photographs are Handled - Elizabeth Edwards, Pitt Rivers Museum Research Centre, University of Oxford, UK“Make it Snuggle in the Palm:” The Commodification of Touch - Roy Sheldon and Egmont Arens The Body Retouched Digital Touch - Mark Paterson, University of the West of England, UKWeaving a New World Spacemaking: Experiences of a Virtual Body - Susan Kozel, Simon Fraser University, CanadaVirtual Touch Copyright Acknowledgments Index(No affiliation: no institution, retired or deceased)