CHAPTER 3: Smelling the Everyday Sense of Smell

**CHAPTER 3: Smelling the Arts in the Everyday** **Sense of smell** - Chemosensory phenomenon with **sensory cells** (olfactory sensory neurons) found high inside your nose releasing signals to your brain - Scientific basis of smell **Social basis** - Has trained the brain to make...

**CHAPTER 3: Smelling the Arts in the Everyday** **Sense of smell** - Chemosensory phenomenon with **sensory cells** (olfactory sensory neurons) found high inside your nose releasing signals to your brain - Scientific basis of smell **Social basis** - Has trained the brain to make our body respond to the smell it detects - If the **smell is good**, then it relaxes and makes the object/surrounding smelled as something **desirable** - If the brain recognizes the smells as **bad**, then the object is deemed **undesirable** **Smelling** - Least useful in social perception of art - Discriminates, and hierarchizes because of social standards deemed acceptable or not, high social class or not, hegemonic or ethnically acceptable only **Phenomenology of Experience of Smell** - Act of smelling becomes an event involving scientific, biological, social, and universal experiences to coalesce into experience of smell itself **Infant to Adulthood** **Infant** - Cannot detect smell - Excrement as bad - Solid food (sweetened) as good - Fresh bath as ritual of relief - Perspiration and blood as undesirable **Child** (Through **control of time** and **sense of smell**) - Play is good - Perspiration is not good (needs to constantly cleansed with bath and soap) - Newer experiences with smell introduce to socially desirable and undesirable smell **Teenager** (Surveillance and disciplining of the body) - Menstruation - Body odor - Smell of the group of choice - Smell of newer social experiences **Adulthood** (newer social experiences) - Intimacy with permanent partner - Smell of newborn baby - Smell of sick bed **Smell** becomes for the body a symptom of what is acceptable in society or not. The **power of smell** emanates from the body's likely acceptance of what society deems desirable or not. **Deodorants** - To control the smell of armpits doing its logical-biological consequences **Feminine Hygiene Products** - To regulate the body and even society at large **Sanitary Napkin/Douce Liquid** - For a fresher feel Even **men** are introduced with their own **personal washing liquid**. **Society** - Is being regulated by larger power of the state **Capitalist Products/ Capitalism** - Help steer the selling of more products and generating more profits Example: Local coffee was deemed low compared to industrial coffee powder, with creamier smell. - The introduction of global coffee café experience shifted the preference for brewed coffee. **3-in-1 coffee** - Later introduce to recapture the taste and smell of ordinary people The **smell of freshly laundered clothes** using fabric conditioners able to withstand (even rainy seasons) than clothes washed without fabric deodorizer. **Low-class Smells** - Smells attribute to bodies, objects, and environment of working classes a. Smell of carabao manure b. Sweat c. Body odor d. Sewer and garbage **High-end Sector** a. Expensive perfumes b. Brand new cars and designer items c. Organic sprays d. Exclusive entertainment sports A. Smell is also **gendered and sexualized**. 1. **Gendered** - Considered feminine and masculine a. Citrus smell -- feminine b. Musk -- masculine 2. **Sexualized** - Heterosexual becomes the normative experience in smell a. LGBTQ Smell (??) b. Smell of scented candles c. Roses d. Chocolates e. Kisses f. Underwear B. Smell is also **racialized and ethnicized** 1. **Racialized** - Privileged whiteness of skin and racial experience become the norm to navigate smell a. **Mestizos and mestizas** endorse perfume but not dark-skinned as they attribute to [working class] and [indigenous cultures] 2. **Etnicized** - Manileno and Mestizo/za cultures as the privileged of ethnicities C. Smell privileging a particular **religious denomination** in country. - **Catholic rituals and holidays** D. Smell is also **generational** - Exuding preference for youthful bodies than the smell in experiences of infants and children/senior citizens **Self** - Recognized and misrecognized through senses like smell **Smell of Home** - Determined by bodies living in it - Overdetermined by class, gender, and sexual, racial and ethnic, religious and generational backgrounds **Illegal Smell** a. Marijuana b. Meth Concept of **Bayan** - Formation of community based on place and language of **origin** - Bayan is [more privilege] than bansa - Bayan -- place of origin - Bansa -- nation, amalgamation of all communities - **Kabayan** or **kababayan** -- experiences abroad became the privileged **THE ELEMENTS OF OLFACTORY EXPERIENCE** Gives rise to perception of odors, mediated by olfactory nerve. **Olfactory receptor cells** - Neurons present in olfactory epithelium - Small patch of tissue at back of nasal cavity **Olfactory nerve** - The smell mediator, the axon connects the brain to external air **Odorous molecules** - Act as chemical stimulus When the signal reaches a threshold, **neuron** fires, sending signal traveling along the axon to **olfactory bulb** (part of limbic system of brain) **Olfactory Bulb** - Acts as relay station connecting the nose to olfactory cortex **Odor sensation** depends on **concentration** (number of molecules) available to olfactory receptors. **TWO-STEP PROCESS** (perception of odor effect) 1. There is **physiological part**, the detection of stimuli by receptors in the nose. 2. Odor feelings are very **personal perceptions,** individual reactions are related to gender, age, health, and personal history. **Habituation** - After continuous odor exposure, the smell fatigues quickly - Affects the ability to distinguish odors after continuous exposure **Odor Perception** - A primal sense - Can warn of danger, help locate mates, find food, or detect predators We only have **350 functional** olfactory receptor genes compared to **1,300 in mice**. **SEVEN PRIMARY ODORS** 1. **Musky** -- perfumes/aftershave 2. **Putrid** -- rotten eggs 3. **Pungent** -- vinegar 4. **Camphoraceous** -- mothballs 5. **Ethereal** -- dry cleaning fluid 6. **Floral** -- roses 7. **Pepperminty** -- mint gum - Women usually outperform men - **Pregnant women** have increase smell sensitivity - Deficits in smell increase with **age** - Chronic smell problems in small numbers in **mid-twenties** Immigrants Lives and the Politics of Olfaction in the Global City (2006) **Martin F. Manalansan IV** - Filipino based in US - Issues of LGBTQ and Filipino American studies - Pioneer in sexual and ethnic ethnographies - **Smell** is integral in staging and experiencing ethnic affinity - Having **two kinds of kitchen** a. Dirty kitchen b. Sterile display kitchen a. **The Smelly Immigrant** - **Immigrant body** is constructed to be natural carrier of undesirable sensory experience - **Classen** suggest that smell is pivotal index of moral, racial, ethnic class, etc. - **McPhee** characterizes [US culture] as deodorized one - **Howes**, "universal association between olfaction and transition" b. **Odors on the Run; Aboard the Number 7 Train** - Dubbed "**the Oriental Express**" - Where bodies are kept in confining spaces and where aromas are amplified - **Julia Harrison** -- elderly, long-time resident **The Breath of God: Sacred Histories of Scent** **Constance Classen** - Cultural historian and general editor - Harvard Univ, Univ of Toronto, and McGill Univ - The **"order of sanctity'** - Through life and scent of Teresa De Avila's body - The gifts of 3 kings to Jesus (gold, frankincense, and myrrh) - **Smell of power** is the sexiest smell even in religion a. **The Odor of Sanctity** - Christians who lived in state of grace would be infused with divine scent of Holy Spirit - Means of making the presence of God known to others - His odor was sweet after his last breath - Coffin opened four months after death, body was found to be incorrupt and sweet-smelling - Have interrupted a lecture by St. Colomban with his odor of sanctity b. **Teresa of Avila** - Known **Teresa of Jesus** - Emitted a fragrance so powerful that it scented everything she touched **Another Memory** **Marcel Proust** - One of most influential authors - French novelist, critique, and essayist - What has transpired during that day and what, how, and why the recounting allows for memory to take place - Allows for putting together bits and pieces - We remember movies, not with what we watched but with contexts, watched it with, etc. **Sense and Sensibility** **Helen Keller** - First **deaf-blind** to earn bachelor of arts degree - American author, political activist, lecturer and innovator - Support of women's suffrage, labor rights, socialism, and antimilitarism - Smell as an operational sense and sensibility making mechanism in life - Heightened with sight disabilities - Navigation of world of experiences a. Smell is a Fallen Angel b. The Elusive Person-odor