Past Scents: Historical Perspectives on Smell

Abstract

Introducing a 1996 translation of Alain Corbin's now seminal work on the history of scent, The Foul and the Fragrant, Roy Porter lamented that 'today's history comes deodorized'.(1) As Jonathan Reinarz shows in this historical synthesis of recent work on the history of smell, Porter's complaint has since been enthusiastically answered. In the past few years a whole series of conferences have focused on the history of the senses, including smell, and their relationship with themes such as religion, decadence and the domestic in a variety of historical periods.(2) Past Scents, arranged across an introduction, six themed chapters and a conclusion with thoughts for further research, serves to tie together some of the emerging themes in the published scholarship on this field.