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Moving Scents: Julia’s Invited Talks in Canada
January 6 – January 20
In January 2026, Julia traveled to Canada to deliver paper presentations and engage in academic networking with colleagues from the Sensory Studies.
The 2026 MLA Convention of the Modern Language Association in Toronto marked the first stop of her trip. She was invited to give a talk on Materializing and Sensing Animal Magnetism’s Ethereal Fluid in the 1780s and beyond as part of the panel Fluid Media 1750-1850, curated by Ella Wilhelm (Univ. of Michigan) and Austen Hinkley (Yale Univ.) and sponsored by the Lessing Society. The panel set out to rethink fluid elemental media by situating them within the scientific and aesthetic debates of the period. In her paper, Julia theorized the ether-like magnetic fluid of Mesmer’s animal magnetism as a virtual force, ambiguously associated with multimodal sensations and political implications.
Julia’s second station was the Center for Sensory Studies at Concordia University in Montreal. Upon invitation by David Howes, on January 15, she presented her paper Moving Scents: Choreographies Amid the Racial Capitalocene in the Talking Sense Lecture Series. The talk explored how olfactory choreographies both challenge epistemic regimes while simultaneously being historically entangled with racial capitalism. More information down below.
Connecting with the generous people from the Center for Sensory Studies opened up wonderful opportunities for exchange and expanding OLFAC‘s network.