New Books in Critical Theory Hsuan L Hsu, "Olfactory Worldmaking" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)
Mar 24, 2026
Hsuan L. Hsu, an academic in English and environmental humanities who studies smell and sensory justice. He explores how scent shapes memory, racialized breathing, and diasporic connection. He discusses art and literature that use olfaction to imagine alternative, more equitable worlds. The conversation highlights speculative and reparative uses of smell across fiction, installations, and cultural practices.
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Smellscapes Distribute Memory And Exclusion
- Smellscapes shape who belongs in a place by distributing mnemonic triggers unevenly through the air.
- Hsuan L. Hsu shows deodorized colonial atmospheres privilege certain fragrances while stigmatizing diasporic and Indigenous smells.
Breath As A Site Of Racial Violence And Intervention
- Breathing and smell can both sustain systemic racism and serve as sites for political intervention.
- Hsuan L. Hsu draws on thinkers like Ashon Crawley and Christina Sharpe to reframe breath as both vulnerable and generative for Black survival.
Renee Stout's Conjure Woman Uses Smell As Power
- Renee Stout's exhibition Tales of the Conjure Woman stages a futuristic conjure woman using perfume bottles, roots, and narrative to assert Black feminist agency.
- Hsuan L. Hsu describes the conjure woman mixing aromatic materials to mobilize erotic agency and transcorporeal relations.
