Biography

Viktoria von Hoffmann holds a PhD in History from the University of Liège (2010). Her research interests cover the social and cultural history of the lower senses (taste and touch) in early modern Europe. She has published two monographs on the history of taste (Goûter le monde. Une histoire culturelle du goût à l’époque moderne, 2013 and From Gluttony to Enlightenment. The World of Taste in Early Modern Europe, in press [2016]), one co-edited volume on disgust (2015), and is now engaged in a research project aiming to shed light on the knowledge and technologies of touch in early modern Europe.

Project Summary

This project explores the history of touch through the lens of Italian Renaissance anatomy. Using anatomical textbooks, depictions of dissections, and notes of medical students, it examines the ways in which the sense of touch was theorized in the past, as well as the part played by haptic experience in the early modern study of nature.