Scents and Imagination, 04 June 2025Info Location Attendee Categories Contact More Info Event Information
DescriptionThe symposium explores the complex relationship between olfactory heritage and imagination, examining how cultural, material, and symbolic meanings of smells shape and are shaped by imaginative practices. It investigates the role of smell in social belonging, its cultural dimensions, and how imagination influences the perception of inaccessible or distant odours. The event promotes interdisciplinary collaboration, featuring contributions from scholars across history, neuroscience, philosophy, and the arts, with keynotes from experts like William Tullett and Sussan Babaie. Additionally, the symposium encourages participation from early career researchers and underrepresented groups. Olfactory heritages will be analysed in their intricate relationship with imagination. These heritages refer to the power of the mind to represent possibilities and the faculty of creating a framework to understand the human sensory experience. The symposium investigates imagination as a synthetic practice of sense-making. One of the symposium’s interests is to understand to what degree imagination should be conceived as a situated activity, contextualised in its historical framework. The full programme is available at: https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/45567/
Event Location
Attendee Categories3. Virtual Attendance
Additional ItemsContactNicki Dawidowski More InformationThe symposium is divided into two sections: the first investigates how olfactory heritages shape imaginative processes, addressing questions about the relationship between smells, cultural values, environmental concerns, and societal belonging. The second section explores how imagination contributes to understanding smells from different historical, geographical, and cultural contexts. It questions whether and how we can recreate the sensory experience of past odours, with relevance to museological practices and the accessibility of sensory experiences for all. The event also includes practical activities, such as an interactive performance by artist Lena Trost, titled Glass Tasting, which will explore the role of imagination in perceiving smells, as well as additional workshops. Through these diverse activities, the symposium fosters a critical dialogue on the ecological, social, and ethical dimensions of olfactory studies and aims to build an interdisciplinary network for advancing the field.
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