“You can change your noses, but you can’t change your Moses”: Olfactory Aesthetics and the Jewish “Race”

Roth, Zoë

Abstract

This article shifts the analysis of the ‘Jewish’ nose away from its visual significance to its olfactory capacity. It develops the notion of an olfactory aesthetics as a way of becoming attuned to the role smell plays in the interpretation of racial differences. Through analyzing a corpus of images by Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp that represent both the ‘Jewish’ nose and processes of olfaction, the article explores how smell heightens the racialized perception of visual symbols like the nose. Ultimately, however, it argues that an interpretative process attuned to smell may help disrupt the predetermined signs that mark racialized subjects as different.

Citation

Roth, Z. (2019). “You can change your noses, but you can’t change your Moses”: Olfactory Aesthetics and the Jewish “Race”. Esprit Créateur, 59(2), 72-87. https://doi.org/10.1353/esp.2019.0017

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 29, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jun 28, 2019
• Publication Date: 2019
• Deposit Date: Jun 7, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 7, 2019
• Journal: Esprit Créateur
• Print ISSN: 0014-0767
• Electronic ISSN: 1931-0234
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 59
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 72-87
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/esp.2019.0017
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1329231