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Introduction

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Shopping and the Senses, 1800-1970

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Abstract

Whether retailer or consumer, walking through a shop space engenders physical and emotional responses. Desire and disgust, excitement and exhaustion are all mediated and experienced through a complex nexus of sensory, cultural and embodied knowledge. This introductory chapter will familiarise readers with the core historiographical threads which have influenced the sensory histories of shopping, and will offer a primer suitable for students and researchers. Work on retail spaces and shopping practices will be interwoven with the influence of material culture and histories of emotions and the body. The chronological scope of the volume will also be unpacked. While sensory engagement with the commercial world was by no means unique to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the shifting retail landscape of the department store and global trade in the pre-digital age proffers a tightened focus for this volume. The chapter will pay particular attention to the importance of placing sensorial bodies back into retail spaces, and the implications this has on how we consider retail practices and experiences.

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  1. De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

    Serena Dyer

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  1. Serena Dyer
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  1. De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

    Serena Dyer

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Dyer, S. (2022). Introduction. In: Dyer, S. (eds) Shopping and the Senses, 1800-1970. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90335-0_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90335-0_1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-90334-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-90335-0

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