Books by Constance Classen

An extensive historical exploration of touch which lies at the heart of our experience of the world

This text argues that smell is repressed in the modern West, and its social history ignored. It attempts to break the "olfactory silence" of modernity by offering an exploration of the cultural role of odours in Western history and in a wide variety of non-Western societies.

Compellingly demonstrates the relationship between sensory and gender orders, highlighting the gender politics behind such sensory constructs as the male gaze and the female touch.