Call for ASLE 2025 Conference Virtual Panel

The panel proposes to explore intersections between atmospherics, olfactory perception, and socio-environmental inequality. As H. L. Hsu puts it, “the social construction of smell informs— and is informed by— the social construction of environmental risk perception” (Smell of Risk, NYU Press, 2020, 6). Individual and collective experiences of atmospheric odor (whether pleasant or unpleasant) indeed influence social behaviors and representations. Historically, in the West, the long-standing belief in miasma theory led to considerations of space in which …