David Howes is Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Centre for Sensory Studies at Concordia University, Montreal. He holds three degrees in anthropology and two degrees in law. His main fields of research include sensory anthropology, culture and consumption, art and aesthetics, constitutional studies, and the anthropology of law.

Howes has conducted field research on the cultural life of the senses in the Middle Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea, Northwestern Argentina, and the Southwestern United States. He recently concluded an anthropological study of the sensory life of things in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, and has embarked on a new media art project in collaboration with colleague Christopher Salter which involves designing and building “performative sensory environments” for the communication of anthropological knowledge.

Howes’ research in law has focussed on the elaboration of a methodology for resolving legal disputes brought on by the increasing mixity and friction between cultures that stems from the rising tide of  transnational migration. In place of using culture as a defense, he advocates the development of a cross-cultural jurisprudence. He has also conducted a comparative study of constitutions and cultural production in the United States and Canada. (www.canadianicon.org)

Howes is the editor of The Varieties of Sensory Experience (1991), Cross-Cultural Consumption (1996), and Empire of the Senses  (2004); the co-author with Constance Classen and Anthony Synnott of Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell (1994); and, the author of Sensual Relations: Engaging the Senses in Culture and Social Theory (2003). His latest book is Ways of Sensing: Understanding the Senses in Society (with Constance Classen) which came out in January 2014. He is a Founding Editor of  The Senses and Society journal, and a co-convenor of the Sensory Studies website (www.sensorystudies.org). See further www.david-howes.com