Together with Dr .Vebhuti Duggal at Ambedkar University Delhi, Christin Hoene has edited a special section on the topic of “Empire and the Senses: Case Studies from Late Colonial India” for the journal South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies.
Christin co-wrote the introduction and also contributed an article.
All six articles in the special section address the role of the senses in late colonial India. Participating in the act of decolonising sensory studies, the collection explores the intersections between postcolonial studies and sensory studies by paying particular attention to the sensorium of the colonised. In the historical and geographical context of colonial South Asia, the senses are embedded in acts of distinction across race, caste, class, and bodily and gender hierarchies.
The collection intervenes by paying attention to the relationship between power and sense perception as it finds register in media, scientific practices and literature of the period. Across all articles, we suggest that making sense of empire is also to make sense of the sensory regimes of empire that have resonances in the contemporary.
Articles in the special section are:
Introduction: Making Sense of Empire
Vebhuti Duggal & Christin Hoene
Pages: 903-912
Writing the Imperial Experience of Hunting: Assam Planter and the Sensory World of a British Tea Frontier
Manjeet Baruah
Pages: 913-925
Combining Global Expertise with Local Knowledge in Colonial India: Selling Ideals of Beauty and Health in Commodity Advertising (c. 1900–1949)
Mobeen Hussain
Pages: 926-947
The Observant Owl: Sensory Worlds of Colonial Calcutta in Hutom’s Vignettes
Priyanka Basu
Pages: 948-965
Senses and Sensibilities in Sarojini Naidu’s Poetry
Christin Hoene
Pages: 966-982
The Smell of Caste: Leatherwork and Scientific Knowledge in Colonial India
Shivani Kapoor
Pages: 983-999
Incomplete Listening, Unfinished Writing: Sound and Silence in Archival Recordings from the Early Twentieth Century
Moushumi Bhowmik
Pages: 1000-1015
