Acknowledgments

Olfactory Worldmaking grew out of conversations, intellectual community, feedback, and encouragement from my colleagues and students at UC Davis, and from the generous engagement of colleagues in interdisciplinary sensory studies, critical ethnic studies, and the environmental humanities. I’m thankful to have had occasions to work, think, and be in conversation with with Sophia Bamert, Akua Banful, Alexandra Burgess, Warren Cariou, Aleesa Cohene, Rachael DeWitt, Bowen Du, Chanelle Dupuis, Silke Felber, Kathleen Frederickson, Lindsey French, Erica Fretwell, Beatrice Glow, David Howes, Michelle Huang, Xuelei Huang, Beenash Jafri, Mark Jerng, Andrew Kettler, Simeon Koole, Ally Louks, Alison Maas, Lauryn Mannigel, Desiree Martín, Tobias Menely, Colin Milburn, Elizabeth Miller, Dane Mitchell, Sal Nicolazzo, Carlos Alonso Nugent, Jonathan Radocay, Rebecca Hogue, Margaret Ronda, Jeffrey Santa Ana, Kara Murphy Schlichting, Sachi Sekimoto, Yumna Siddiqi, Jayanthan Sriram, Julie Sze, Jean-Thomas Tremblay, Will Tullett, David Vázquez, Ryan Wander, Tiffany Werth, Edlie Wong, Bryan Yazell, Anicka Yi, Ruben Zecena, Agustine Zegers, Michael Ziser, Emma Zumbro, and the late and dearly missed Elizabeth Freeman. I’m especially grateful to Melody Jue for offering brilliant feedback on the manuscript and to Leah Pennywark and Anne Carter at University of Minnesota Press for their support and expert guidance. And I’ll always be grateful for early career mentorship and support from Tom Conley, William Handley, Lawrence Buell, Colleen Lye, Samuel Otter, Caren Kaplan, Wai-Chee Dimock, Priscilla Wald, and Shelley Fisher Fishkin. Errors or missteps are all mine.

Some sections of this book include expanded or reworked versions of previously published research. The paragraph on Lee Maracle in chapter 1 and the readings of Larissa Lai and Octavia Butler in chapter 3 are reworked from my essay “Olfactory Futures in BIPOC Speculative Fiction,” in Literature and the Senses, edited by Annette Kern-Stähler and Elizabeth Robertson (Oxford University Press, 2023); the paragraph on TANAIS’s MALA project and the sections of chapter 2 on conjure materials and Renée Stout are reworked from my essay “Olfactory Politics in Black Diasporic Art,” in Olfactory Art and the Political in an Age of Resistance, edited by Debra Riley Parr and Gwenn-Aël Lynn (Routledge, 2021).

I’m grateful for opportunities to present and be in conversation about Olfactory Worldmaking at the Uncommon Senses Conference, the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, the Colby Summer Institute in Environmental Humanities, the Senses and Sensations Research Group at University of Bristol, the Elemental Readings: Air conference at UCLA, the American Studies Festival at Syddansk University, Farm for Change at Academica Sinica, the American Cultures Colloquium at Northwestern University, the Future of Fragrance at Royal College of Art, the Asian American and Diaspora Studies Series at Duke University, the University of Gothenburg, What Is Smell Studies? at Cambridge University, the Institute for Art and Olfaction, Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the POUSH Art Center, and the Jules Collins Smith Museum.

As always, I’m thankful for my friends and family and am so very lucky to share the air with Beenash and Zayn.