Class-en Battle

By Anonymous -
“Exploring the history of touch makes the past come alive … It clothes the dry bones of historical fact with the flesh of physical sensation” -Constance Classen
Constance Classen is a very interesting figure because she takes something I love (history) and completely revolutionizes how it is understood. From her reading what I understood is that rather than viewing history through visual prowess she incorporated the sense of touch as a way to better understand history. Classen's book deepens her own impressive influence on the emerging field of sensory history, a field grounded not only in uncovering lost sensory worlds of the past but also in examining how those sensory worlds connect to one another. This is interesting because I personally love history and throughout my time learning about history it has been very visual in recounting events. By inducing sensory history I think it is a way to better understand history as a whole. It also reminds me of when I did a WWII paintball reenactment. We all dressed up in WWII cosplay and actually played in conditions like WWII. The course had put thousands of dollars along with multiple sponsors to bring the battlefield in history to life. I felt that in acting out the event while also trying to continue as if I am a soldier in WWII really set the tone for a better understanding of what it was like back in WWII. Though we did not go through such extremes as the brave soldiers did in that era I believe that I can better understand and respect them greatly after putting myself into something similar to what soldiers went through. I truly believe that Classen's sensory history is something amazing and a way to further understand history better. 

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