Exciting the Body

This book uncovers how during the origins of modernity in the nineteenth century the senses were mobilised to sell more, both through the popularisation of objects aimed at the senses (such as panoramas, optical boxes, automatons, music boxes and pianolas), and also through marketing mechanisms (for example, advertising and window dressing). All these novel objects and spaces had one thing in common: the aim of attracting the public by stimulating the senses. By examining practices that mobilised the senses in the emerging fields of advertising, marketing and the leisure industry, and through an approach that involves elements from the history of the senses, visual studies, sound studies and aesthetics, this book explores what this new sensory-driven mass culture was all about.

The basis of English translation of this book, originally in Spanish Vidas excitadas. Sensorialidad y capitalismo en la cultura moderna (2022), was facilitated by artificial intelligence. The author, with the support of Lucille Banham, has subsequently revised the text further in an endeavour to refine the work stylistically.