Olfactory ethics: The Politics of Smell in Modern and Contemporary Prose

[BuckeyeLove]

Have ya'll heard about this? It's a dissertation a woman just completed (very social justicy [sic]) and defended at some prestigious school and it's blowing up on social media. I feel bad for the author. She posted a pic of herself holding it originally with pride and saying she is now a doctor. And now the entire world of twitter is crapping on her and using this as just one more reason why academia can't be trusted (along with a hold slew of other inductions about society at large). It just reminded me of the Raven dissertation that we used to talk about on here so many years ago (which i really would appreciate if someone had a copy, forward to me).

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[psych.meout]

I saw this and it really sucks that this is happening to her. It's people who don't understand doctoral education and training and who have a bias against higher ed generally and this kind of topic harassing her for posting about completing her doctorate.

One of the many revealing posts about it was someone criticizing her for being stupid because she used "two synonyms" in the title. They didn't understand the difference between "modern" and "contemporary" literature.

 

[cara susanna]

I am SO annoyed by the people who have zero idea how academia works, or what's considered important and novel research in her field, jumping on her. All the woman did was share a picture and express excitement about her accomplishment, and she got dogpiled on. She even got a rape threat.

I saw this and it really sucks that this is happening to her. It's people who don't understand doctoral education and training and who have a bias against higher ed generally and this kind of topic harassing her for posting about completing her doctorate.

One of the many revealing posts about it was someone criticizing her for being stupid because she used "two synonyms" in the title. They didn't understand the difference between "modern" and "contemporary" literature.

That one killed me. Lord, give me the confidence of a mediocre white man.

 

[LM02]

Not to mention, people were all up in arms about "US tax dollars" going to fund this research, and she is at Cambridge or Oxford or somesuch place, clearly outside of the US. 🙄

 

[Shiori]

I'm about 3/4 through Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates. This seems very much in that vein.

 

[PsyDr]

1) Freud inspired the otolaryngologist Fliess during a series of lectures in Vienna. Fleiss proposed that the early quadrupedal steps in evolution created a connection between smell and emotions. This idea went too far during the surgery of Emma Eckstein , causing Freud to peace out during the middle of surgery. But modern neuroscience has shown some associations since. So... maybe Dr. Louks isn't so strange after all.

2) Although she graduated from a much better school than I did, Dr. Louks' thesis is in the English Department where she was already teaching.

3) The Associated Press rules for media state that only physicians can be titled "Dr". The Associated Press is an NYC based not for profit. This standard is the reason that psychologists are not titled "Dr." in US based media. It's also why people freak out when that standard is not used. Europe is not part of the USA, and does not follow the AP rules.

 

[summerbabe]

As somebody who took way too many contemporary lit classes in undergrad 20 years ago, doing 'novel' work as a graduate student in the humanities pushes people into projects like this that need to sound 'smart' about things that are either way too common sense or things that are way too obscure to matter.

In her dissertation, Dr Louks focused on the idea of olfactory discrimination, or the use of smell to establish class boundaries and regulate interpersonal communication. The first chapter is devoted to discussing how and to what extent smell is used to convey the themes of class difference, assessed in the light of George Orwell’s texts and other cultural artefacts. Even the abstract of her thesis emphasizes intersectional analysis, claiming that she seeks to reveal the unnoticed role of olfactory experiences in configuring relations and perceptions between people.

Dr Louks said that her study is to identify and demonstrate how literature provides olfactory discourse. She states, “The broad aim of this thesis is to offer an intersectional and wide-ranging study of olfactory oppression," suggesting a view toward the complexity of the ways in which smell does or does not relate to identity and status.

The entire state of Louisiana besides New Orleans basically smells like a giant chemical factory because it's poor citizens (by US standards) have little means to push back against commercial interests who've widely deregulated any environmental protections in that state.

And tons of poor people around the world live next to massive landfills and spend the majority of their lives combing through trash to find food waste to eat and discarded household goods that can be resold for pennies to survive.

I probably don't need a deep dive on Orwell to conclude that poor people have and continue to be subjected to worse smells than rich people, that this experience is a marker for a fundamentally different life experience and that society is perfectly content to allow this to continue to happen.

 

[cara susanna]

I like to point out that PhDs were the ORIGINAL doctors. Physicians stole the title from us because they were so untrustworthy.

I think it's interesting how her work ties into disgust. I attended a key note speaker seminar presented by a disgust researcher back in grad school and it was quite fascinating.

 

[ClinicalABA]

H It just reminded me of the Raven dissertation that we used to talk about on here so many years ago (which i really would appreciate if someone had a copy, forward to me).

Sadly, this is all i could find:

A Human-raven Affinity

books.google.com

 

[neothanos]

Lessons here:

- Stay off social media
- Some academic subjects delve into the obscure and aren't accessible conceptually to the lay public. Some academic subjects make an art of stating the obvious in an overly convoluted, jargon heavy manner. Psychology is guilty of this.
- The project delves into "woke" topics with a focus on intersectionality and oppression. Ironically, the identity and appearance of the writer play into this, a pretty young, elite white woman writing in an obscure topic, using the language of 4th/5th wave feminism. There is a legitimate argument that the latter has played into damaging quality of life for many people. And, it's a political firestorm right now.

Opinion:
- How people write about sensory experiences and describe and characterize class, race and culturally defining features over time is an interesting and worthy topic.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Not the greatest analogy, but a bit like how the McDonald's coffee lawsuit took on a mind of its own once the lay public began forcing all their assumptions onto what on the (very) surface sounds like a "stupid" situation.

And yes, the current political climate didn't help.

 

[clausewitz2]

I like to point out that PhDs were the ORIGINAL doctors. Physicians stole the title from us because they were so untrustworthy.

I think it's interesting how her work ties into disgust. I attended a key note speaker seminar presented by a disgust researcher back in grad school and it was quite fascinating.

Nah, it's the theologians who were first, but then what can one expect but theft and treachery in this fallen world?

 

[cara susanna]

So, we are judging the raven dissertation as academic peers in the diss author's field. That is absolutely not what happened on Twitter.

 

[Sanman]

Nah, it's the theologians who were first, but then what can one expect but theft and treachery in this fallen world?

Doctor (title) - Wikipedia

A bit of both theology and academia apparently.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

(humor interjection) I wonder what it would look like on TikTok...

Meet the winners of the 2024 Dance Your PhD Contest

“One of the main messages I wanted to convey… is that differences lead to diversity.”…

arstechnica.com

 

[clausewitz2]

Doctor (title) - Wikipedia

A bit of both theology and academia apparently.

True enough, the line between theology and natural philosophy (closest equivalent to 'science') in the 12th century was pretty darn thin.

 

[MCParent]

Not the greatest analogy, but a bit like how the McDonald's coffee lawsuit took on a mind of its own once the lay public began forcing all their assumptions onto what on the (very) surface sounds like a "stupid" situation.

And yes, the current political climate didn't help.

Less a mind of its own than a mind funded by McDonald’s to promote.

 

[futureapppsy2]

The ironic thing is that we saw during COVID how important the sense of smell is to people and how impactful and distressing it is to lose that.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Less a mind of its own than a mind funded by McDonald’s to promote.

Nah, it was more about helping politicians place caps on monetary awards in civil trials. There’s an interesting documentary on it.

 

[cara susanna]

Just saw this Tweet:

"Did someone do this research because they found out they had deep and abiding interest in smell equity or did they choose a topic primarily to jump through a hoop to get a prized title? "

Like dissertations in general are not just a giant hoop to jump through? I chose a topic I was pretty passionate about and in the end I still ended up hating it.

 

[WisNeuro]

Just saw this Tweet:

"Did someone do this research because they found out they had deep and abiding interest in smell equity or did they choose a topic primarily to jump through a hoop to get a prized title? "

Like dissertations in general are not just a giant hoop to jump through? I chose a topic I was pretty passionate about and in the end I still ended up hating it.

I would agree, most people have little understanding the point of a dissertation. It is supposed to help one become competent in the production and dissemination of research within ones content area. If it becomes an important contribution to the field, that's just a bonus. I had interesting findings, but through the process figured out I did not adequately address a major confound, and decided not to pursue publishing those findings. Learned more by what I screwed up, than what I did right.

 

[cara susanna]

I would agree, most people have little understanding the point of a dissertation. It is supposed to help one become competent in the production and dissemination of research within ones content area. If it becomes an important contribution to the field, that's just a bonus. I had interesting findings, but through the process figured out I did not adequately address a major confound, and decided not to pursue publishing those findings. Learned more by what I screwed up, than what I did right.

Someone just argued that a PhD is supposed to show your ability to teach your subject (since most academic PhDs are for teaching). Uhh, what?

Really, this is just proving how little the mainstream public understands academia.

 

[smalltownpsych]

To be honest I tend to be a bit skeptical or condescending or even judgmental of doctorates in the humanities as a whole. One reason I am such a strong advocate for psychology as a science first and foremost and for treatment and evaluations as an applied science.

 

[R. Matey]

I would agree, most people have little understanding the point of a dissertation. It is supposed to help one become competent in the production and dissemination of research within ones content area. If it becomes an important contribution to the field, that's just a bonus. I had interesting findings, but through the process figured out I did not adequately address a major confound, and decided not to pursue publishing those findings. Learned more by what I screwed up, than what I did right.

I had this experience with a smaller study I did during graduate school. It was a good lesson and ended up informing my dissertation topic.

 

[WisNeuro]

I had this experience with a smaller study I did during graduate school. It was a good lesson and ended up informing my dissertation topic.

Original data collection at some point in training is absolutely essential. I don't trust any psychologist who has never done original data collection.

 

[Ollie123]

In my view, a properly done PhD should be around 80-90% about methodology and "learning to think and learning to learn." Content is - frankly - unimportant and almost irrelevant. Once you're scientifically literate, learning new content is easily done on your own. A huge number of scientists end up pivoting from what they did in graduate school anyways. I've had 3 (hopefully soon to be 4) NIH-funded neuroimaging grants now and never learned a single thing about it during graduate school (we didn't even have any faculty who had done imaging).

Admittedly, that ratio may be slightly different for clinical degrees. Even there I'd argue there is an overemphasis on content that is at least a partial contributor to the struggles we have keeping people up on evidence-based practices.

 

[BuckeyeLove]

Getting your own data is essential. I tested 300 undergrads (executive functioning stuff). I'll never forget it. tedious. tedious. tedious. but I'm glad i did it.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Getting your own data is essential. I tested 300 undergrads (executive functioning stuff). I'll never forget it. tedious. tedious. tedious. but I'm glad i did it.

You haven't lived until you've done at least one study with an undergraduate sample.

 

[R. Matey]

You haven't lived until you've done at least one study with an undergraduate sample.

 

[ClinicalABA]

Olfactory experiences are important (p<.05). I'm reminded of this article I used to assign when I was teaching OBM:

Summary: Individuals who smell "like a male" are more likely to be hired for leadership positions, regardless of actual gender.