Dr. Ally/Allie Louks

I mean that they include representations of just like really horrific things, you know.

Lolita is one thing.

It's a special text in the sense that it really...

The kind of linguistic glossing effect that goes on means that a lot of the horror is very subdued.

But some texts will just throw the horror at you and ask you to deal with it.

But during the PhD, I did not very often get to work on positive smells of any description or like family friendly, fun, nice books.

It was always people doing horrible things to each other in the realm of fiction.

Exactly.

Yeah, I really do.

And I really try to resist any kind of snobbery about fiction.

Like I will happily read young adult fiction.

When I was finalizing the edits on my thesis, I listened to all of the audio books for a series of unfortunate events, which is a series that I loved when I was a kid.

And it actually really rewards a reread because it's very intensely literary.

There are lots and lots of references to canonical literature in those books.

So I really enjoyed that.

It was a way of completely shutting my brain off at nighttime.

I love...

feeling like I really genuinely have a sense of purpose, that I know that whatever I choose to do is contributing new knowledge.

I think that's the really special thing that I love about smell studies is that because it really hasn't been going for very long, it kind of emerged in the 1980s, there's so much work to do.

And it all feels very invigorating and necessary.