The Smell of Slavery: Olfactory Racism and the Atlantic World by Andrew Kettler

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In the Atlantic World, different groups were aromatically classified in opposition to other ethnic, gendered, and class assemblies due to an economic necessity that needed certain bodies to be defined as excremental. African subjects were defined as scented objects, appropriated as filthy to create ownership through forceful sensory discourse.

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In the Atlantic World, different groups were aromatically classified in opposition to other ethnic, gendered, and class assemblies due to an economic necessity that needed certain bodies to be defined as excremental, which culminated in the creation of a progressive tautology that linked Africa and waste through a conceptual hendiadys born of capitalist licentiousness. The African subject was defined as a scented object, appropriated as filthy to create levels of ownership through discourse that marked African peoples as unable to access spaces of Western modernity. Embodied cultural knowledge was potent enough to alter the biological function of the five senses to create a European olfactory consciousness made to sense the African other as foul. Fascinating, informative, and deeply researched, The Smell of Slavery exposes that concerns with pungency within the Western self were emitted outward upon the freshly dug outhouse of the mass slave grave called the Atlantic World.

Author Biography

Andrew Kettler is an Ahmanson-Getty Fellow at the UCLA Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.

Table of Contents

Introduction. Pecunia non olet; 1. The primal scene: ethnographic wonder and aromatic discourse; 2. Triangle trading on the pungency of race; 3. Ephemeral Africa: essentialized odors and the slave ship; 4. 'The sweet scent of vengeance': olfactory resistance in the Atlantic world; Conclusion. Race, nose, truth.

Review

'The Smell of Slavery makes important and original contributions to both the history of the senses and studies of racism and resistance in the Atlantic World. Kettler sheds further light on the embodied dimensions of slavery, convincingly tracing across centuries the role of smell in the construction of a racist system of dehumanization, commodification, and segregation, while illuminating the contrasting smellscapes of the oppressed.' Céline Carayon, Salisbury University and author of Eloquence Embodied: Nonverbal Communication among French and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas'The Smell of Slavery is a monumental contribution to critical race studies and the history of the senses at once. It exposes in excruciating detail how African bodies came to be attributed an inherent pungency and infectiousness as part of a dialectical process which also positioned white bodies as pure and deodorized. No study better exemplifies how race is made, not given, and the role of capitalism in transforming African subjects into objects of commerce through olfactory othering. Blending impeccable scholarship with passionate denunciation, this book lays bare the visceral politics of racialization in the Atlantic World. By sensing between the lines of racist tracts, Andrew Kettler also brings to light an 'African olfactory' of resistance to white domination and the denigration of olfaction that is deeply inspiring.' David Howes, Professor of Anthropology, Concordia University'The Smell of Slavery provides an extraordinary history of scent and smell in the Anglo-American Atlantic world. There is nothing else quite like this study: Kettler uncovers the 'deep cultural bricolage of smelling' that informed Atlantic slave societies and shows the role of smell in the history of sensory anti-blackness in the West.' Craig Koslofsky, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign'… represents a fundamental contribution to the history of the senses, one of the most innovative and interesting historical projects of recent years … historians in particular will delight in the extensive footnotes, an absorbing work on their own.' P. Harvey, Choice'… Kettler's work explicitly explores the pre-history of scent in discussions of slavery and its persistence in the slaves' own longings for African airs that countered the simplistic and racialized ideologies that claimed African bodies merely reeked. It is a rich interdisciplinary account that engages closely with philosophy and how rhetoric works to dene others as polluted and different, a process that Kettler argues was at the heart of a nascent capitalist system that used dirt to mark ownership in the same way that animals use urine and faeces to mark their territory or terrain.' Jonathan Reinarz, Slavery & Abolition'The Smell of Slavery is a welcome and necessary contribution to the growing field of sensory studies, and it is also an important addition to the historiography of the Atlantic world. Kettler's anthropological reading of sources is enthralling. He carefully reconstructs an olfactory past that enhances and complicates our understanding of how categories of difference came to be. At its heart, this book is about the power of odors, both real and culturally imagined.' Cari Casteel, Journal of Southern History'This focus on olfaction adds a critical new element to our understanding of the development of modern ideas of racism. Smell should now be added among the battery of issues identified by scholars-such as religion, language, kinship, complexion, and social organization-that strengthened ideas of African cultural inferiority by advancing false beliefs about biological difference.' Daniel Livesay, Journal of Interdisciplinary History'The Smell of Slavery is unquestionably a solid piece of scholarship and an essential reading in the burgeoning field of sensory studies, olfactory history in particular.' Xuelei Huang, Journal of British Studies'Scholars in sensory studies, a highly interdisciplinary field, will find this work a rewarding read … this is an important book …' William Tullett, H-Early-America'Andrew Kettler's The Smell of Slavery: Olfactory Racism and the Atlantic World is an important contribution to the small, yet expanding, library of sensory history, … The Smell of Slavery is unquestionably a solid piece of scholarship and an essential reading in the burgeoning field of sensory studies, olfac-tory history in particular.' Xuelei Huang, Journal of British Studies'Kettler's book takes us on a journey through the smells of the Atlantic slave trade … [it] should also have a much wider influence beyond the bounds of history. Scholars in sensory studies, a highly interdisciplinary field, will find this work a rewarding read … this is an important book and one that, even without the generous pricing by Cambridge University Press, should find a place on many a historian's and sensory scholar's (physical or virtual) bookshelf.' William Tullett, H-Early-America'The book shifts throughout between deft synthesis of an impressive range of scholarship, close readings of a wide variety of print and archival sources, and a passionate, sometimes polemic, denunciation of racist sensory tropes … Scholars in sensory studies, a highly interdisciplinary field, will find this work a rewarding read.' William Tullett, H-Net

Promotional

Slavery, capitalism, and colonialism were understood as racially justified through false olfactory perceptions of African bodies throughout the Atlantic World.

Review Quote

'This focus on olfaction adds a critical new element to our understanding of the development of modern ideas of racism. Smell should now be added among the battery of issues identified by scholars-such as religion, language, kinship, complexion, and social organization-that strengthened ideas of African cultural inferiority by advancing false beliefs about biological difference.' Daniel Livesay, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Promotional "Headline"

Slavery, capitalism, and colonialism were understood as racially justified through false olfactory perceptions of African bodies throughout the Atlantic World.

Details ISBN1108796389 Author Andrew Kettler Pages 257 Publisher Cambridge University Press Year 2022 ISBN-13 9781108796385 Format Paperback Publication Date 2022-12-08 Imprint Cambridge University Press Subtitle Olfactory Racism and the Atlantic World Place of Publication Cambridge Country of Publication United Kingdom AU Release Date 2022-12-08 NZ Release Date 2022-12-08 UK Release Date 2022-12-08 ISBN-10 1108796389 Illustrations Worked examples or Exercises; 5 Halftones, black and white Alternative 9781108490733 DEWEY 306.3620974 Audience Professional & Vocational We've got this

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