27. Mai 2026, 17.00 Uhr Kunstuni Linz, Hauptplatz 8, 4020 Linz (Lecture Hall F - H8.05.03)
The Department of Cultural Studies invites you to a lecture from William Tullett (Early Modern History, University of York).
William Tullett (Early Modern History, University of York)
This paper uses a range of sources, primarily newspapers and government documents, to trace the history of stink bombs as a tool of political action across the west during the 1920s and 1930s. Having contextualised the emergence of the stink bomb within the longer history of weaponised smells, the paper then traces which political actors deployed stink bombs, how they used them, and when governments attempted to ban or otherwise mitigate their use. It ends by opening up a broader question about the fate of smell as a tool of activism and/or political repression and, in the context of the western media's ongoing obsession with cancel culture and de-platforming, asks what counts as ”violence” and ”freedom” when it comes to smell’s use in public space.
Will Tullett is a Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of York.
His research focuses on the history of smell across the world form the medieval period to the present. He has published two books: 2019’s Smell in Eighteenth-
Century England with Oxford University Press and 2023’s Smell and the Past with Bloomsbury Academic. Autumn this year will see the publication of his major new history of smell with Yale University Press. He was part of the EU Horizon 2020 funded Odeuropa project and is currently running a British Academy funded
project on smell and industrial heritage.
All Dates of the lecture series “The Senses in Performance”:
11. März 2026
Introduction by OLFAC – Silke Felber, Freda Fiala and Julia Ostwald
25. März 2026
320 GB im Rucksack – der physische Aspekt digitaler Kunst über Gletscher
Tina Frank (Visual Communication, University of Arts Linz) &
Alexis Dworsky (Media Design, University of Arts Linz)
15. April 2026
Dis_sensual – A crip choreographer’s re-distribution of the sensible
Michael Turinsky (Artist, Vienna)
22. April 2026
Performing Snakes in Modernity and Today
Nicole Haitzinger (Dance Studies, University of Salzburg) &
Christina Gillinger (Tanzquartier Vienna TQW)
29. April 2026
Lingering with Bass (2024, Steve McQueen)
Ulrike Hanstein (VALIE EXPORT Center, University of Arts Linz)
6. Mai 2026
Sinn für Unlösbares
bankleer – Karin Kasböck & Christoph Maria Leitner
13. Mai 2026
Mimi o Sumasu – the Very Act of Listening
Mia Yoshida (Artistic Research and Head of the Zentrum Fokus Forschung, University of Applied Arts Vienna)
20. Mai 2026
Tasting skin. On chilis and chills
Karin Harrasser (Cultural Studies, University of Arts Linz and Director of
ifk – International Research Center for Cultural Studies)
27. Mai 2026
Olfactory Violence and the Freedom to Speak: Stink Bombs in Interwar Europe
William Tullett (Early Modern History, University of York)
3. Juni 2026
Sensing the Atmospheres of Painters’ Studios in Nineteenth-Century France
Erika Wicky (Olfactions, Université Grenoble Alpes)
10. Juni 2026
Hee-Hawing Democracy: Somatic Articulations Beyond the Logos - Inhalt folgt
Bettina Wuttig (University of Marburg)
17. Juni 2026
Greetings from the Swamp
Maria Nalbantova (Artist, Sofia)
24. Juni 2026
A loving ear – toward a poetic ecology of feeling
Brandon LaBelle (Independent Researcher, Berlin)