In order to show off the wide range of excellent work being produced on smell and the past to as wide an audience as possible, we are drawing on the Odeuropa Network and PastScent membership to put together a series of ‘Smellinars’. These free, online seminars will feature a range of speakers talking about their work on smell and the past, olfactory heritage, and sensory mining. Here you can find details about upcoming and past smellinars.
Upcoming Smellinars
As we arrange new Smellinars, we will post information and links to register for them here and also announce them in our newsletter and on social media. Keep your nose to the ground for news on 2022’s smellinars soon.
Previous Smellinars
23/06/2021: Odeuropa Smellinar 2: The Past, Present, and Future of Smell and Heritage with Prof Asifa Majid, Prof Holly Dugan, and Prof Matija Strlič.
This second event will bring interdisciplinary perspectives from leading scholars in the the fields of psychology and linguistics, history and literature, and heritage science to talk about where the study of smell and heritage has been, where it currently is, and where it might go in the future. We’ll then have a break for the summer before recommencing our Smellinar series in September (so keep your nose to the ground!).
Asifa Majid is an Inspirational Research Leader and Professor at the University of York. She has been awarded numerous prizes and awards for her work on olfactory language and cognition across diverse cultures.
Holly Dugan is an Associate Professor of English at The George Washington University. She is the author of The Ephemeral History of Perfume: Scent and Sense in Early Modern England (JHU Press, 2011) and co-editor with Karen Raber of The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Animals (Routledge 2020); she also co-editor with Lara Farina of “The Intimate Senses” (a special issue of Postmedieval), co-editor with Karl Steel of “Fabulous Animals” (a special cluster in Early Modern Culture). She is currently working on two book projects, including “Shakespeare and the Senses” (under contract with ACMRS Press).
Matija Strlič is Professor of Heritage Science at University College London and Professor of Analytical Chemistry at University of Ljubljana. He works on the development of heritage science infrastructure, including instrumentation and methodology, as well as modelling of heritage materials, environments, values and decision making. He has worked on topics related to preventive conservation and material emissions, including smells of heritage and heritage smells.
26/05/2021: Odeuropa Smellinar 1: Professor David Howes, ‘Follow Your Nose: Thirty Years Researching Smell’.
Our first speaker, Professor David Howes, is a pioneer in sensory studies. He is a Professor of Anthropology and the Co-Director of the Centre for Sensory Studies at Concordia University, and an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at McGill University, Montreal. He is the co-author of the award-winning book, Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell (Routledge, 1994), which devotes equal space to exploring the history, anthropology and sociology of olfaction. His latest book is the 4-volume Senses and Sensation: Critical and Primary Sources compendium (Routledge, 2018) and his next book is called “The Sensory Studies Manifesto” (forthcoming from University of Toronto Press).
Following the publication of the ground-breaking Aroma, the study of smell has grown into an exciting area of interdisciplinary study. In this talk Professor Howes will reflect on the past, present, and future of that world.
A blogpost that explores Professor Howes’s talk.