Talking Sense is a research project at the University of Oxford, hosted in partnership with the Ashmolean Museum and funded by the AHRC-TORCH Graduate Fund. The project brings together a group of doctoral students and early career researchers from different academic disciplines across the humanities and the sciences to explore the subject of the senses. This series of interdisciplinary gallery talks brings the latest academic research and ideas by Oxford students to the wider public.
During the 2018–19 academic year, researchers held in-depth conversations about their own research on the senses and about how objects in the Ashmolean’s collection can be used to understand the significance of the senses at different times and places. Some of the project’s central questions include: how are the senses used in different areas of life to construct meaning and value? How does their use and understanding vary across time and place? How can objects offer insights into the sensory worlds of different societies?
