The Business History Initiative is hosting a one-day workshop on June 29, 2017: "Capitalism and the Senses."

The workshop brings together scholars from various disciplines, including marketing, history, and anthropology, to explore how businesses developed marketing strategies to appeal to consumers’ senses from the nineteenth century to today. Attention to sensory appeals became a crucial part of business strategies in the modern consumer-oriented economy. The conference will encourage participants to explore such themes as the creation of sensory experience in modern capitalist society from cross-cultural perspectives, the impact of technological development on sensory perception, the politics of sensory experience, and the construction of knowledge about the senses.

The event is open to the public. RSVP to Ai Hisano (ahisano@hbs.edu).