Literary Olfactology (THE POLITICS OF SMELL) with Ally Louks

Oh hey, it's the ashtray you used during the quarantine years that you repurposed as a watercolor paint dish. Ali Ward, this is ologies. This is a subject that none of you know jack shit about because what even is it? It's great. That's what it is.

So this ologist came to my attention after a very, very weird, very public thing that happened to them last fall, and I had so many messages begging me to interview them and it was not a hard sell. I waited until life calmed down a bit and then got them on the line to chat about what they do. Now smell and culture, scent descriptions in novels, fragrances and class, stink, stigmas, we covered all, including their very weird and gripping backstory.

So they have a bachelor's in English literature from the University of Exeter and a master's in issues in modern culture from the University College London. They recently completed a PhD at Cambridge University. They're now a supervisor in English Lit at Cambridge. We talk about all kinds of smells and a few are gross, but just hang in there. That's kind of the whole point of this.

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