Colloque international IMAGINES/ International Conference IMAGINES
18-20 Octobre 2018, Toulouse

(roll down for the French version)

The Fragrant and the Foul: the Smells and Senses of Antiquity in the Modern Imagination

The classical tradition has long confined Antiquity to an immaculate, sanitized whiteness : thus idealised, it was deprived of its multi-sensorial dimension, and conveniently limited to the visual paradigm. Olfaction, in particular, has often been overlooked in classical reception studies due to its evanescent nature which makes this sense difficult to apprehend. And yet, the smells associated with a given figure, or social group convey a rich imagery which conotes specific values : perfumes, scents and foul odours both reflect and mould the ways a society thinks or acts. The aim of this conference will be to analyse the underexplored role of smell – both fair or foul – in relation to the other senses, in the modern rejection, reappraisal or idealisation of Antiquity. We will pay particular attention to the visual and performative arts especially when they engage a sensorial response from the reader or the viewer.

We therefore invite contributions focusing not only on painting, literature, drama, and cinema but also on advertising, video games, television series, comic books and graphic novels, as well as on historical re-enactments which have recently helped reshape the perception and experience of the antique for a broader
audience.

Conference papers (in English or French) will be twenty minutes in length. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

– The materiality of smell: what are the substances, plants and/or objects associated with antique smells in the modern imagination? To what extent may we confront current archeological data concerning the fragrant objects used in Antiquity with representations of smell in modern works? What new technical means are now mobilized to make modern audiences ‘smell’ and sense Antiquity (for instance in museums and multi-media productions)? We also invite papers that address the role flowers play in the modern construction of the antique smellscape and how this connects with the other senses.

– The sensoriality of antique rituals: How do fragrances (incense, burnt offerings, perfumed oils) shape modern representations of antique ritualistic and magical practices? To what extent does the staging of ritualistic gestures and objects associated with smell (and notably the burning of incense) create a form of estrangement between past and present, and deepen the rift between polytheistic and monotheistic faiths?

– The erotics of smell and scent: How was the antique body (both male and female) made desirable thanks to the use of perfume and cosmetics? How was this in turn exploited in painting, films, advertisement etc. – especially in connection with Orientalism? What role does smell play in gendered constructions of the antique body? What relation can we establish between the fragrant and the (homo)erotic? We also welcome discussions of
modern representations of antique baths, hygiene and ‘sane’ classical bodies in relation to
scent.

– Foul smells and diseased bodies: to what extent did the hygienistic shift which affected Western societies in the modern age (as described by A. Corbin) influence the perception of the antique smellscape? When did Goethe’s conception of the classical as ‘sane’ start being challenged? More generally, how are antique illnesses and decaying bodies depicted in the modern imagination and for example performed on stage or in historical reenactments
aiming to recreate ‘authentically’ the experience of antique battles? Does smell have a specific social/national identity? Since Antiquity, whose bodies have been most recurrently perceived as pestilent: those of enemies, foreigners, lower social classes (artisans, peasants, slaves…)?

Proposals (300 words) and short biographies should be sent to Adeline Grand-Clément (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Charlotte Ribeyrol (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) no later than 15th December 2017.
The contributions must be original works not previously published. The abstract should clearly state the argument of the paper, in keeping with the topic of the conference.
A selection of contributions (in English) will be considered for a volume publication by Bloomsbury in the series ‘Imagines – Classical Receptions in the Visual and Performing Arts’.

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Appel à communications, Toulouse 2018

Le miasme et l’oliban. L’odeur et les sens dans la réception de l’Antiquité

Colloque international IMAGINES/ International Conference IMAGINES
18-20 Octobre 2018, Toulouse

L’Antiquité classique a longtemps été considérée comme étant « aseptisée », d’une blancheur immaculée : l’idéalisation dont elle a fait l’objet l’a dépouillée de sa dimension sensorielle, au profit du seul paradigme visuel. Le domaine olfactif, en particulier, a peu retenu l’intérêt des études sur la réception de l’Antiquité, en raison de son caractère évanescent et difficile à saisir. Pourtant, les odeurs que l’on prête à tel personnage ou à tel groupe social véhiculent tout un imaginaire riche et porteur de valeurs spécifiques : parfums et pestilences contribuent à façonner les façons de penser et d’agir d’une société. L’objectif du colloque sera d’explorer le rôle de l’olfaction, en relation avec les autres registres sensoriels, dans les processus de réception de l’Antiquité à l’époque moderne – que ces derniers se manifestent sous la forme d’un rejet, d’une réappropriation ou d’une idéalisation. Nous nous intéresserons de manière plus spécifique aux arts visuels et performatifs, lorsqu’ils cherchent à engager l’expérience sensorielle du lecteur ou du spectateur. Seront ainsi concernés non seulement peinture, littérature, théâtre, cinéma, mais également la publicité, les jeux vidéos, les séries, les comics et romans graphiques ainsi que les reconstitutions historiques à grande échelle qui ont renouvelé l’imaginaire lié à l’Antiquité en
touchant un plus large public.

Les communications (en français ou en anglais) seront d’une durée de 20 min et pourront porter sur l’une des quatre thématiques suivantes :

– La matérialité de l’odeur: quels sont les objets, végétaux et substances odorant(e)s qui caractérisent les sociétés antiques dans l’imaginaire qui s’est développé autour de l’Antiquité? Peut-on confronter les résultats des analyses archéométriques actuelles, qui nous renseignent sur la nature des produits odorants manipulés par les Anciens, aux
representations que l’on trouve dans les oeuvres modernes? Quels efforts aujourd’hui pour donner à “sentir” l’Antiquité et quels moyens techniques mobilise-t-on (en particulier dans les musées, les productions multimedias…)? On pourra accorder une attention particulière aux fleurs, qui contribuaient à la mise en place de cet imaginaire odorant, permettant également de faire le lien avec les autres registres sensoriels.

– La sensorialité des rituels: dans quelle mesure la mise en scène d’effluves odorantes (encens, fumée du sacrifice, huiles parfumées, …) sert-elle à suggérer les pratiques rituelles – ou magiques – des Anciens? Quels types de dispositifs imagine-t-on? La mise en scène, à travers les gestes, les produits manipulés et les effets recherchés, participe-t-elle à créer un sentiment d’altérité chez les Modernes et à creuser une distance entre religions
polythéistes et monothéismes?

– La puissance érotique des senteurs et parfums: par quels moyens olfactifs (parfums, produits cosmétiques) les corps masculins et féminins étaient-ils rendus désirables et attractifs? Comment cet imaginaire fut-il exploité en peinture, au théâtre, dans les films, dans les publicités, etc. – notamment en rapport avec la vogue de l’orientalisme? Il s’agira aussi, à travers cette thématique, d’interroger le processus de construction du genre et la relation entre odeurs, sexualité et (homo)érotisme. On inclura également les réflexions autour de l’imaginaire lié aux bains, aux thermes et à la propreté des corps sains (sans perdre de vue l’angle olfactif).

– Les mauvaises odeurs et les corps malades: dans quelle mesure le tournant hygiéniste qui a affecté les sociétés occidentales au cours de l’époque moderne (cf. A. Corbin) a-t-il influencé la vision du paysage olfactif antique ? A partir de quand la conception goethéenne du classique comme ‘sain’ a-t-elle cessé de prévaloir? Et plus généralement, comment les Modernes se sont-ils représentés la maladie et les mauvaises odeurs des Anciens? Comment ce désir de traduire l’expérience sensorielle antique de manière plus ‘authentique’ s’exprime-t-il par exemple dans le cadre de performances théâtrales ou de reconstitutions historiques (‘re-enacment’) de batailles célèbres de l’Antiquité? Les communications pourront aussi envisager la dimension identitaire de l’olfaction: à quels
corps associe-t-on, depuis l’Antiquité, les pestilences? Ceux des ennemis, des étrangers, voire ceux des classes sociales les plus basses – artisans, paysans, manoeuvres, esclaves…?

Les propositions de communication (300 mots) accompagnées d’une courtebiographie sont à envoyer à Adeline Grand-Clément (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) et à Charlotte Ribeyrol (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) avant le 15 décembre 2017. Il devra s’agir de recherches originales n’ayant pas déjà fait l’objet d’une publication. Le résumé fera apparaître clairement la thèse centrale de l’auteur, en relation avec la thématique du colloque.

Les communications pourront faire l’objet, après avis favorable du comité scientifique, d’une publication (en anglais) dans un volume édité chez Bloomsbury dans la collection ‘Imagines – Classical Receptions in the Visual and Performing Arts’.

The Fragrant and the Foul: The Smells and Senses of Antiquity in the Modern Imagination

Le miasme et l’oliban: L’odeur et les sens dans la réception de l’Antiquité

18-20 October 2018, Université Jean Jaurès, Toulouse

Programme

Link to website

Thursday, October 18, 2018

13:30 – 14:00: Welcome and registration

14:00 – 14:30: Introduction – Adeline Grand-Clément & Charlotte Ribeyrol

14:30 – 15:45: KEYNOTE 1: Mark Bradley – Chair: Adeline Grand-Clément

14:30 – 15:30: ‘Roman aromas: dirt, depravity and the power of odour in the city of Rome, from ancient to modern’ – Mark Bradley (Nottingham University)

15:30 – 15:45: Discussion

15:45 – 18:15: SESSION 1. Gendered smells and bodies – Chair: Filippo Carlà-Uhink (Heidelberg)

15:45 – 16:15: ‘Let “no unpleasant smell offend the nostrils”: the role of the body in the rhetoric of Erasmus of Rotterdam’ – Elaine Sartorelli (Sao Paulo). Link to abstract

16:15 – 16:45: ‘Vaginal Fumigation for the Goop Generation: Scent Therapy in Antiquity and the Holistic Health Movement’ – Margaret Day (Ohio State). Link to abstract

16:45 – 17:00: Coffee break

17:00 – 17:30: ‘“DADA does not smell like anything”: performing and painted bodies from Ovid to Dada.’ – Ainize González García (Barcelona) & Nicole Haitzinger (Salzburg).

17:30 – 18:00: ‘L’odeur du marbre : Chaleur et sensualité des corps antiquisants au XXIe siècle’ – Fabien Bièvre-Perrin (Centre Camille Jullian, Aix-Marseille Université) & Tiphaine Annabelle Besnard (Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour). Link to abstract

18:00 – 18:15: Discussion

Friday, October 19, 2018

09:30 – 10:45: KEYNOTE 2: Catherine Maxwell – Chair: Charlotte Ribeyrol

09:30 – 10:30: ‘”Unguent from a carven jar”: Odour and Perfume in Arthur Machen’s The Hill of Dreams (1907)’ – Catherine Maxwell (Queen Mary, London)

10:30 – 10:45: Discussion

10:45 – 13:00: SESSION 2. Exotic scents: sensing otherness – TBC

10:45 – 11:15: ‘Sensual Otherness: Ancient Baths in 19th century Art’ – Giacomo Savani (Leicester University)

11:15 – 11:45: Coffee break

11:45 – 12:15: ‘Perfumed antiquity in Victorian paintings’ – Christina Bradstreet (National Gallery London)

12:15 – 12:45: ‘Breathing in “the strange Egyptian smell”: Contamination and the Erotics of the Dead Body’ – Nolwenn Corriou (Paris I)

12:45 – 13:00: Discussion

13:00 – 14:30: Buffet lunch

14:30 – 16:15: SESSION 3. What smell is the sacred ? The sensoriality of antique rituals – TBC

14:30 – 15:00: ‘Representations of fragrance in Pompeian domestic cult’ – Johannes Eber (LMU München)

15:00 – 15:30: ‘Marie-Madeleine, la sainte (au) parfum’ – Jean-Pierre Albert (EHESS Toulouse). Link to abstract

15:30 – 16:00: ‘Sacrifier des parfums pour Isis: la reconstitution sensorielle de rituels isiaques dans la littérature et la peinture au XIXe siècle’ – Anna Guédon (Toulouse). Link to abstract

16:00 – 16:15: Discussion

16:15: Coffee break

18:30: Visit of the Musée Saint-Raymond

20:00: Conference dinner (to be confirmed)

09:00 – 12:00: SESSION 4. Recreating the Fragrance of the Past – Chair : Martin Lindner (Göttingen)

09:00 – 09:30: ‘“Balsama et crocum per gradus theatri fluere iussit” (Vita Hadr. 19,5). The Smells and Senses in the Roman Theatre and their Contemporary Reception.’ – Raffaella Viccei (Milan)

09:30 – 10:00: ‘Wake up and smell the Roman food’ – Kim Beerden (Leiden)

10:00 – 10:30: ‘La persistance d’un parfum antique: la Rose de Paestum’ – Giulia Corrente (Università degli Studi Roma Tre). Link to abstract

10:30 – 11:00: Coffee break

11:00 – 11:30: ‘Archiving smells: a review of real and imagined collections of odours, and a proposal for smell preservation’ – Cecilia Bembibre (UCL)

11:30 – 12:00: TBC – Denise Reitzenstein (LMU München)

12:00 – 12:30: Closing discussion

12:30 – 13:30: Lunch buffet

13:30: Sensory workshop (Les Fées Bottées)

15:00: Imagines Meeting (for members of the executive board only)

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Le miasme et l’oliban. L’odeur et les sens dans la réception de l’Antiquité / The Fragrant and the Foul: The Smells and Senses of Antiquity in the Modern Imagination.

International Conference IMAGINES VI, 18-20 October 2018, Toulouse

The Toulouse conference on Ancient smells was the 6th Imagines conference. For the first time, it was held in France; Toulouse was chosen because the university hosts the research team PLH-ERASME, which has been exploring the reception of Antiquity for many years now; its journal Anabases is now well-known in France and abroad. Moreover, the senses were custom writing buy essays the topic of study for a 2-year research program called ‘Synaesthesia’, funded by the University of Toulouse (2015-2017). This program focused on the sensorial aspects of ancient rituals and brought together classicists and anthropologists.

The Imagines network was created in the wake of the boom of classical reception studies, in 2005, its originality lies in its interest in more neglected areas of the classical inheritance – and ‘smell’ evidently falls into this category of ‘neglected’ senses. But the aim of this international project was also to break down the traditional division between high and low culture by embracing more popular approaches to Antiquity. This is why the Toulouse conference included a private tour of the Musée St Raymond – which has a beautiful collection of roman marbles and was hosting a performance on the colour Blue – and ended with a sensory workshop by Amandine Declercq from les Fées Bottées. Every participant was invited to make his own kyphi, an Egyptian perfume which was really famous during Antiquity.

The idea of exploring the modern receptions of the smells of Antiquity in the visual and performing arts originated in the current research interest of Charlotte Ribeyrol (a specialist of Victorian England) and Adeline Grand-Clément (a classicist working on Ancient Greece). They started collaborating about ten years ago. In keeping with their shared interest in colours, they co-organised a workshop called « L’Antiquité en couleurs », which took place in 2005 in Paris. They have been working together since, comparing the Ancient Greek perception of colours and its reception by the British artists called the Aesthetes. In the Imagines conference in Mainz, in 2012, they held a joint paper on the reception of the figure of Medea in 19th paintings, which showed that colours played an important role in the representation of Medea as a powerful magician.

Girl pours perfume into a vase, Villa Farnesina Roman wallpainting / fresco, 1st c. BC Italy C M Dixon/AAA Collection

Colours and smells are strongly connected: it is a point that has been stressed by many scholars who have contributed to the « sensory turn » which occurred about twenty years ago, in the various fields of the humanities: anthropology, history, sociology… David Howes and Constance Classen in particular have actively promoted the importance of studying the multiplicity of ways of sensing, which differ from one society to other. They have shown that the hierarchy of the senses – what they call the ‘sensorium’ – is a cultural construct. But in France, the tradition of sensory studies is more ancient than that. The historian Lucien Febvre, one of the founders of the “Ecole des Annales”, was a pioneer in the field. He wrote a paper entitled « La sensibilité et l’histoire : comment reconstituer la vie affective d’autrefois ? » (Annales d’histoire sociale, 3, 1941, pp. 221-238). Following in his footsteps, Alain Corbin greatly contributed to the history of the sensibilities: one of his key works deals with the sounds of village bells in the 19th century French Countryside (1994); another with the perception of smells and fragrances during the 18th and 19th centuries (1982). This book has opened up a new field: the historical sociology of smell. Alain Corbin clearly showed that the smells associated with a given figure or social group, convey a rich custom writing buy essays imagery which connotes specific values: perfumes, scents and foul odours both reflect and mould the ways a society thinks or acts. He pointed out the hygienistic shift which affected Western societies in the modern age. The French title of his book « Le miasme et la jonquille » was translated The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination. The title inspired that of the conference.

But what about the reception of these ancient smells and perfumes? This issue appears as quite challenging for at least three reasons:

-First, the classical tradition has long confined Antiquity to an immaculate, sanitized whiteness: thus idealised, it was deprived of its multi-sensorial dimension, and conveniently limited to the visual paradigm. And if smell was considered, it was only for the perfumes and incenses, neglecting the bad smells. But Ancient societies did smell, and they also smelt bad! We do hope that the conference will shed light upon the role played by the new media in reevaluating the odours of Antiquity: in particular advertising, video games, television series, comic books and graphic novels, as well as historical re-enactments, which have recently helped reshape the perception and experience of the antique for a broader audience.

-Second, olfaction has often been overlooked in classical reception studies due to its evanescent nature which makes this sense difficult to apprehend. But efforts have recently been made, in the field of archaeology, to recreate some of the perfumes used by Ancient people and to present them during exhibitions.

-Third, smell is not visual: how can we track this sense in the kind of visual and performing arts which the Imagines project analyses? We hope that the Conference will shed light on the various strategies elaborated by artists in order to make Antiquity fragrant again, in the same way as it has been made colourful again.

The aim of the conference was to analyse the underexplored role of smell – both fair or foul – in relation to the other senses, in the modern rejection, reappraisal or idealisation of Antiquity. Four main topics were addressed:

– Gendered smells and bodies: How was the antique body (both male and female) made desirable thanks to the use of perfume and cosmetics? What role does smell play in gendered constructions of the antique body? What relation can we establish between the fragrant and the (homo)erotic?

–Exotic scents: sensing otherness: Does smell have a specific social/national identity? Since Antiquity, whose bodies have been most recurrently perceived as pestilent: those of enemies, foreigners, lower social classes (artisans, peasants, slaves…)? Which kind of influence did Orientalism exert in the reception of Ancient scents?

–What smell is the sacred? The sensoriality of antique rituals: How do fragrances (incense, burnt offerings, perfumed oils) shape modern representations of antique ritualistic and magical practices? To what extent does the staging of ritualistic gestures and objects associated with smell (and notably the burning of incense) create a form of estrangement between past and present, and deepen the rift between polytheistic and monotheistic faiths?

–Recreating the Fragrance of the Past: dealing with the materiality of smell: what are the substances, plants and/or objects associated with antique smells in the modern imagination? To what extent may we confront current archeological data concerning the fragrant objects used in Antiquity with representations of smell in modern works? What new technical means are now mobilized to make modern audiences ‘smell’ and sense Antiquity (for instance in museums and multi-media productions)?

The two keynote speakers – Mark Bradley and Catherine Maxwell – are specialists in the field of Ancient and Modern fragrances. Mark Bradley has recently edited the volume Smell and the Ancient Senses (2014), published by Routledge in the new collection « The Senses in Antiquity ». He also co-organised in June 2017 a conference on the uses and meanings of incense in Antiquity, in Rome, with Adeline Grand-Clément, Anne-Caroline Rendu-Loisel and Alexandre Vincent (“Sensing divinity” link to video of the burning incense workshop). Catherine Maxwell, whose research deals with Victorian literature, wrote a book entitled Scents and Sensibility. Perfume in Victorian Literary Culture (Oxford, OUP, 2017).

See here the complete programe of the conference

Le miasme et l’oliban: L’odeur et les sens dans la réception de l’Antiquité //
The Fragrant and the Foul: the Smells and Senses of Antiquity in the Modern Imagination

International Conference IMAGINES, 18-20 Oct.2018, Toulouse

Organisers. : Adeline Grand-Clément (Université Toulouse 2-Jean Jaurès, IUF) ; Charlotte Ribeyrol (Université Paris-Sorbonne, IUF); Anna Guédon (Université Toulouse 2-Jean Jaurès)

Link to the Conference website
*
Link to programme and abstracts
*
Keynote speakers :
Mark Bradley (University of Nottingham)Catherine Maxwell (Queen Mary, University of London)
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The aim of this conference will be to analyse the underexplored role of smell – both fair or foul – in relation to the other senses, in the modern rejection, reappraisal or idealisation of Antiquity. We will pay particular attention to the visual and performative arts especially when they engage a sensorial response from the reader or the viewer. We therefore invite contributions focusing not only on painting, literature, drama, and cinema but also on advertising, video games, television series, comic books and graphic novels, as well as on historical re-enactments which have recently helped reshape the perception online paper writer online essay writer and experience of the antique for a broader audience.

For any information, please contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Contact phone number: +33 5 61 50 36 74 (PLH administrative head)

Partners: University Toulouse – Jean Jaurès, University Paris IV – Sorbonne nouvelle, PLH-ERASME, The Institut universitaire de France, Occitanie region, Saint-Raymond museum, Les fées bottées