Ecomusicology: Music, Culture, Nature . . . and Change in Environmental Studies?

The five senses: touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing. We rely on them daily, professionally, and personally — each can inform our understanding of the world and evoke memories of places and times, both distant and dear. Public policy and science, however, are guided primarily by the visual: maps, not the smell of rich soil or the feel of damp air, are used to understand local and national borders; photographs, not the feel of sticky blood or the cold metal of a weapon, provide evidence for use in court; and data such as lists of ingredients, not individual natural and artificial components to be tasted, are provided in text to be read. Scholarly research, after all, is presented in visual form in the text of a journal: maybe in braille but not as light shows, perfumes, or food, and, while those words in a journal may be read aloud, they are certainly not meant to be performed or sung