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The study of scents and all things olfactory is thriving, a sign of the great interest that our information-based society feels for a sense that seems to offer a direct and immediate experience of reality. But smells resist description and representation, especially given that they are closely linked to individual personal experience, and their perception has changed through time and space in a myriad of ways. This volume aims to contribute to the flourishing multidisciplinary exchanges around smells by examining the question of their mediality, focusing on the mechanisms by which the olfactory experience, as well as the scents themselves, circulate and are diffused, but also by exploring the modes of smell as a medium in itself. Drawing on a wide variety of approaches, cultural zones, and historical periods, this volume gathers the contributions of twenty-one researchers who specialize in this field in order to explore the multiple aspects of olfactory culture, which characterizes and shapes our relations to smells.
La richesse de l'actualite en matiere d'odeurs et d'odorat temoigne du vif interet de nos societes de l'information pour un sens qui semble offrir une saisie directe et immediate du reel. Circulant de maniere tres variable a travers le temps et l'espace, les odeurs font l'objet d'une perception qui resiste d'autant plus a la description et a la representation qu'elle reste individuelle et liee a l'histoire personnelle. Ce volume vise a contribuer aux echanges interdisciplinaires sur l'olfaction a travers la question de la medialite, en s'interrogeant sur les mecanismes par lesquels l'experience olfactive et les odeurs sont transmises et diffusees, mais aussi en explorant les modalites de l'odeur comme medium. Proposant une diversite d'approches, d'aires culturelles et de periodes, ce volume rassemble les contributions de vingt-et-un specialistes qui etudient comment la culture olfactive caracterise et construit nos rapports aux odeurs.
