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The Forgotten Sense: Meditations on Touch
Of all the senses, touch is the most ineffable—and the most neglected in Western culture, all but ignored by philosophers and artists over millennia. Yet it is also the sense that links us most intimately to the world around us, from our mother’s caress when we’re born to the gentle lowering of our eyelids after death.
The Forgotten Sense gives touch its due, addressing it in multifarious ways through a series of six essays. Literary in feel, ambitious in conception, admirable in their range of reference and insight, these meditations address questions fundamental to the understanding of touch: What do we mean when we say that an artwork touches us? How does language affect our understanding of touch? Is the skin the deepest part of the human body? Can we philosophize about a kiss? To aid him in answering these questions, Pablo Maurette recruits an impressive roster of cultural figures from throughout history: Homer, Lucretius, Chrétien de Troyes, Melville, Sir Thomas Browne, Knausgaard, Michel Henry and many others help him unfurl the underestimated importance of the sense of touch and tactile experience.
The resulting book is essay writing at its best—exploratory, surprising, dazzling, a reading experience like no other. You will come away from it with a new appreciation of touch, and a new way of understanding our interactions with the world around us.
The Forgotten Sense gives touch its due, addressing it in multifarious ways through a series of six essays. Literary in feel, ambitious in conception, admirable in their range of reference and insight, these meditations address questions fundamental to the understanding of touch: What do we mean when we say that an artwork touches us? How does language affect our understanding of touch? Is the skin the deepest part of the human body? Can we philosophize about a kiss? To aid him in answering these questions, Pablo Maurette recruits an impressive roster of cultural figures from throughout history: Homer, Lucretius, Chrétien de Troyes, Melville, Sir Thomas Browne, Knausgaard, Michel Henry and many others help him unfurl the underestimated importance of the sense of touch and tactile experience.
The resulting book is essay writing at its best—exploratory, surprising, dazzling, a reading experience like no other. You will come away from it with a new appreciation of touch, and a new way of understanding our interactions with the world around us.
192 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2015
About the author
Pablo Maurette
10 books33 followersPablo Maurette received his BA in Philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires, an MA in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies from the University of London (Royal Holloway College), and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Between 2013 and 2017, he was a Harper Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. And in 2018-2019, he was a Fellow at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies.
Maurette specializes in Early Modern comparative literature and the Classical Tradition and his approach is trans-historical, multilingual, and interdisciplinary. His research focuses on the intersections between literature, science, and the history of ideas in the period between 1400 and 1650 in England, Italy, France, Spain, and the New World.
In 2018, he published The Forgotten Sense: Meditations on Touch (The University of Chicago Press), a collection of essays dedicated to the role that the sense of touch has played throughout the Western literary and philosophical tradition, from Homer to Karl Ove Knausgaard.
He also published three books of essays in Spanish: La carne viva (2018) and Por qué nos creemos los cuentos (2021), and Atlas ilustrado del cuerpo humano (2023); and two novels, La migración (2020), that has been translated into Italian and Romanian, La Niña de Oro (2024), translated in italian.
Maurette also writes for wider audiences in Lapham’s Quarterly (USA), La Repubblica (Italy), and Letras Libres (Mexico/Spain). His second novel, La Niña de Oro, is forthcoming with Editorial Anagrama (Spain) in 2024.
(source: https://english.fsu.edu/faculty/pablo...)
Maurette specializes in Early Modern comparative literature and the Classical Tradition and his approach is trans-historical, multilingual, and interdisciplinary. His research focuses on the intersections between literature, science, and the history of ideas in the period between 1400 and 1650 in England, Italy, France, Spain, and the New World.
In 2018, he published The Forgotten Sense: Meditations on Touch (The University of Chicago Press), a collection of essays dedicated to the role that the sense of touch has played throughout the Western literary and philosophical tradition, from Homer to Karl Ove Knausgaard.
He also published three books of essays in Spanish: La carne viva (2018) and Por qué nos creemos los cuentos (2021), and Atlas ilustrado del cuerpo humano (2023); and two novels, La migración (2020), that has been translated into Italian and Romanian, La Niña de Oro (2024), translated in italian.
Maurette also writes for wider audiences in Lapham’s Quarterly (USA), La Repubblica (Italy), and Letras Libres (Mexico/Spain). His second novel, La Niña de Oro, is forthcoming with Editorial Anagrama (Spain) in 2024.
(source: https://english.fsu.edu/faculty/pablo...)
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 7, 2018
Me encantó. Una serie de ensayos que se centran en la presencia de el tacto en la historia de la Literatura. Desde Melville, Homero, Kafka, Lucrecio, Karl Ove Knausgard, va pasando por distintas épocas, sin orden en concreto, pero con la idea de cómo es que el tacto es tan importante en la historia de la Literatura. Tiene algunos inspiradísimos, como el Apretón de manos, en donde directamente vuela con Melville, y Elementos de filematología, sobre el beso, ahí está muy inspirado, y llega a un punto muy pop, será porque el beso es pop, o en otras palabras, quién no va a entender sobre los besos. Muy buenísimo y recomendado.
July 7, 2018
Es una lectura sumamente exquisita, ingeniosamente sofisticada, sublime con su recopilación poética y artística en todos los sentidos. Me ha provocado unas ganas tremendas de sentir de un extremo al otro.
October 12, 2015
Divertido. Irreverente. Erudito. Estos ensayos muestran que con rigor académico y talento se puede escribir una obra de divulgación que deleite tanto al especialista como al lego.
December 12, 2024
El renacentismo nos proveyó del eurocentrismo, el supremacismo blanco y el patriarcado en el desarrollo de la ciencia. Este autor se quedó en él, se limita a ese punto de mira para analizar el tacto.
December 4, 2019
No eres tú, soy yo.
September 27, 2024
quitando el hecho d k solo se dan ideas y puntos d vista de filosofOs… lo cual es hartarte el capítulo sobre la filematología es muy chulo
el resto del libro bmeh
el resto del libro bmeh
April 27, 2025
De las cosas más increíbles que he leído. Simplemente, lo recomiendo. Después de leerlo, no sentirás —literalmente— como hasta entonces lo hiciste.
January 19, 2020
De lectura rebuscada pero me resulto novedosa la reflexión sobre un modo distinto de ver el tacto
May 25, 2016
Divertido, inteligente, sexy, ameno, interesante. Sería un libro perfecto si no repitiera ciertas cosas (tengo la impresión de que le falta una vuelta de tuerca a la corrección).
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews