Books by Viktoria Von Hoffmann
Sens grossier, sens corporel, sens animal, sens matériel… Le goût est, dans les cultures ancienne... more Sens grossier, sens corporel, sens animal, sens matériel… Le goût est, dans les cultures anciennes, un sens inférieur, placé au bas de la hiérarchie des sens. Il peine à éveiller l’attention des savants, fascinés par les merveilles de l’œil et du regard. Comment expliquer, dès lors, l’avènement au XIXe siècle d’une culture qui invente et célèbre la gastronomie, dont nous sommes aujourd’hui les héritiers ? Pour y répondre, il convient d’emprunter des chemins bien plus complexes et sinueux que ceux que nous offre l’histoire de la seule cuisine. Dès lors qu’on l’envisage dans la perspective générale d’une histoire du sensible, le goût se situe non plus seulement entre le salé et le sucré, mais se retrouve au cœur de débats théoriques essentiels portant sur les rapports entre le corps et l’esprit, la Nature et la Culture, l’identité et l’altérité... Ce livre emprunte plusieurs parcours, du « goût de Dieu » des mystiques au « bon goût » de l’honnête homme, en passant par le je ne sais quoi si fréquemment associé à ce sens, choisi comme jugement esthétique du Beau. Cuisiniers, médecins, philosophes – qu’ils soient cartésiens, empiristes, sensualistes ou matérialistes –, hommes d’Église, chimistes, démonologues, encyclopédistes… Nombreux sont les témoignages convoqués ici, susceptibles, par le goût, de réfléchir aux rapports que l’homme moderne entretient avec le monde sensible.
From Gluttony to Enlightenment The World of Taste in Early Modern Europe, University of Illinois Press (“Studies in Sensory History”), 2016.
Mystery, metaphor, and the creation of a new sensual realm.
Scorned since antiquity as low and an... more Mystery, metaphor, and the creation of a new sensual realm.
Scorned since antiquity as low and animal, the sense of taste is celebrated today as an ally of joy, a source of adventure, and an arena for pursuing sophistication. The French exalted taste as an entrée to ecstasy, and revolutionized their cuisine and language to express this new way of engaging with the world.
From Gluttony to Enlightenment explores four kinds of early modern texts--culinary, medical, religious, and philosophical--to follow taste's ascent from the sinful to the beautiful. Combining food studies and sensory history, she takes readers on an odyssey that redefined a fundamental human experience. Scholars and cooks rediscovered a vast array of ways to prepare and present foods. Far-sailing fleets returned to Europe bursting with new vegetables, exotic fruits, and pungent spices. Hosts refined notions of hospitality in the home while philosophers pondered the body and its perceptions. As von Hoffmann shows, these labors produced a sea change in perception and thought, one that moved taste from the base realm of the tongue to the ethereal heights of aesthetics.
Call for Papers by Viktoria Von Hoffmann
Conference Presentations by Viktoria Von Hoffmann
L'objectif de cette journée d'étude du groupe de contact F.R.S.-FNRS "Cultures sensibles" est de ... more L'objectif de cette journée d'étude du groupe de contact F.R.S.-FNRS "Cultures sensibles" est de réfléchir à la vogue actuelle des études sur la reconstitution, le re-enactment, l’expérimentation et la performance en partageant des expériences concrètes de la recherche, en vue de nourrir des réflexions épistémologiques sur l’écriture et la pratique de l’histoire.
Papers by Viktoria Von Hoffmann
Can Mixtures Be Identified by Touch? The Reception of Galen’s De complexionibus in Italian Renaissance Medicine
Early Science and Medicine, 2023
This article uses Galen’s De complexionibus and its reception as a thread to examine the part pla... more This article uses Galen’s De complexionibus and its reception as a thread to examine the part played by the sense of touch in the assessment of bodily mixtures. According to Galen, complexions were assessed by touching patients with the skin of the palm of the hand because it is “at the precise midpoint between all the extremes” and, thus, well-mixed. This article examines how this extraordinary claim about the discriminative power of touch was received from the late Middle Ages up to the early modern period, with a special focus on Renaissance thought. By following Galen’s text and its various forms and appropriations, the aim is to illuminate the fluid understanding of the Galenic notion of “complexion” (complexio) in relation to changing epistemologies of touch in Renaissance medicine, notably by shedding light on the anatomical concept of “substance” (substantia).
Ingeniosa Peritia: The Languages of Ingenuity in Italian Renaissance Anatomy
Richard Oosterhoff, José Ramon Marcaida, and Alexander Marr (eds), Ingenuity in the Making: Matter and Technique in Early Modern Europe, Pittsburgh University Press, 94-111., 2021
“Epistemologies of Touch in Early Modern Holy Autopsies”
Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 75, issue 2, Summer 2022, 542-582, 2022
This article explores the epistemic value of touch in Italian Renaissance anatomy. Using archival... more This article explores the epistemic value of touch in Italian Renaissance anatomy. Using archival and printed postmortem records from canonization processes and anatomical writings, it shows that haptic expertise (Greek ἅπτομαι [haptomai]: to touch) entailed not only the acquisition of practical skills but also the ability to discern, experience, and fully describe organic substances. Looking at the practices, languages, and theories underpinning medical and holy anatomies, I propose that haptic epistemologies lay at the heart of the understanding of the body in the early modern period, a time largely recognized to have transformed people's understanding and experience of visuality in the sciences and the arts.
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Books by Viktoria Von Hoffmann
Scorned since antiquity as low and animal, the sense of taste is celebrated today as an ally of joy, a source of adventure, and an arena for pursuing sophistication. The French exalted taste as an entrée to ecstasy, and revolutionized their cuisine and language to express this new way of engaging with the world.
From Gluttony to Enlightenment explores four kinds of early modern texts--culinary, medical, religious, and philosophical--to follow taste's ascent from the sinful to the beautiful. Combining food studies and sensory history, she takes readers on an odyssey that redefined a fundamental human experience. Scholars and cooks rediscovered a vast array of ways to prepare and present foods. Far-sailing fleets returned to Europe bursting with new vegetables, exotic fruits, and pungent spices. Hosts refined notions of hospitality in the home while philosophers pondered the body and its perceptions. As von Hoffmann shows, these labors produced a sea change in perception and thought, one that moved taste from the base realm of the tongue to the ethereal heights of aesthetics.
Call for Papers by Viktoria Von Hoffmann
Conference Presentations by Viktoria Von Hoffmann
Papers by Viktoria Von Hoffmann
Scorned since antiquity as low and animal, the sense of taste is celebrated today as an ally of joy, a source of adventure, and an arena for pursuing sophistication. The French exalted taste as an entrée to ecstasy, and revolutionized their cuisine and language to express this new way of engaging with the world.
From Gluttony to Enlightenment explores four kinds of early modern texts--culinary, medical, religious, and philosophical--to follow taste's ascent from the sinful to the beautiful. Combining food studies and sensory history, she takes readers on an odyssey that redefined a fundamental human experience. Scholars and cooks rediscovered a vast array of ways to prepare and present foods. Far-sailing fleets returned to Europe bursting with new vegetables, exotic fruits, and pungent spices. Hosts refined notions of hospitality in the home while philosophers pondered the body and its perceptions. As von Hoffmann shows, these labors produced a sea change in perception and thought, one that moved taste from the base realm of the tongue to the ethereal heights of aesthetics.