Smells and Bells

Smells and Bells has come to an end and so has my time as an undergraduate student. This course has changed me significantly- not at the core- I have always appreciated my senses and taken the time to understand them, but in the way that I am able to much more precisely identify just how important these senses are to me and why. It has also in a way prepared me for leaving this place.   It has allowed me to soak in my sensory experiences here knowing that they will be with me forever, if not physically through memory and through connections I find everywhere. The distinct smells of my Davis House kitchen, the touch of my friends hands, the sounds of walking the Chapel bell as it hits the hour, the feeling of the Emerson House ghost following me into my backyard. These are all things I have been able to pay more attention to, immerse myself into more and more every day with greater appreciation for how each of these senses is contributing to my overall experience- one that I will be...

My mom did not see things way, and she saw pain in a very permanent way, like if I was hurt physically for 2 seconds I would be hurt forever. A very dramatic viewing of things. She kind of feels that way about emotional pain too- but something that really struck out to me is the extreme difference she saw in physical vs emotional pain. She only really validated physical pain, emotional pain could never possibly be as intense. I enjoy the way Glucklich said it- they could be equally as gruesome. I have never had physical pain as pressing as emotional ones, the metaphors created from this idea make the most sense to me. Emotional pain, especially for women, is so stigmatized- like if you cry you're just sensitive, and your outburst makes you violent or crazy. No attention is paid to the hurt behind the tears or the anger. Men have the other end of this stick where they are denied the freedom to feel emotional pain outwardly.  Phantom- limb pain is something that I heard about a lot f...

AReading Spell of the Sensuous, I couldn't help but think about the Sapir- Whorf hypothesis- a leading theory in how language and our minds work. Two scientists of the early 90's discuss how language influences our view of the world and ourselves. They argue that h uman beings do not live in society alone and therefore the language of the society we are in predisposes certain choices of interpretation about how we view the world. Whorf also says that w e dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. We categorize objects in the schema laid by the language and if we do not subscribe to these classifications, we cannot communicate. Translations between one language and another is at the very least, problematic, and sometimes impossible. There are so many phrases in Bosnian that I do not know how to communicate in English to my friends, I try to find words to communicate it but the connotations and tone that accompany them will never be the same as they are in Bosn...

Anyone that knows me knows that "seeing is believing" is just not my cup of tea. I believe in a lot of things that I can't see- ghosts, demons, all kinds of supernatural creatures. I'm also a heavy advocate for the things we can't even begin to imagine are real.  Many people use "seeing is believing" as a way to discredit religious figures and religion as a whole. "How do you know God's real if you can't see him" "Well how do you know heaven's real if you've never been there" These things were never said to me because I grew up very non-religious, but it always struck me as incredibly odd that people could discredit things just because they can't see it or because they haven't experienced it.  Regardless, it shows that religion is so strongly connected to our vision. This, in conjunction with the idea of idolatry is so fascinating to me especially since God is already such an idolized figure. Islam Christianity...

   Music is essential in our everyday lives and is tied so closely to our identity, and in many cases to our   culture. Rasmussen speaks of Islamic music and focuses on Islamic music in Indonesia and how it compares to Islamic music around the world. When reading her work, I could not help but relate it to Jorge Drexler's TED Talk on Poetry, Music and Identity and the lack of purity that exists within the music that we have linked to our religion, culture and identity.  Drexler takes us through the history of these songs, how they have developed from one another. The Milonga is claimed as being Uruguayan- but its characteristic beat originates from Africa. It travelled from Persia to Spain and five centuries later to America through the arrival of enslaved peoples. During this same time, the Balkans had been encountering the Roma Scale that gave birth to klezmer music that Ukrainian Jewish people took to Brooklyn, NY. In Brooklyn, a heavily Polish, Ukrainian, Ar...

Cooking is a religious experience- that we have established so far, but in this way of being religious, it also becomes a communal one. However, the concept I found most fascinating is Ortiz's transculturality being applied to cooking. Within Religion in the Kitchen, Perez discusses this idea of transculturality in relation to food- how in Cuban culture there is a great presence of African meat that is then seasoned with various Cuban spices. Through globalization we can  Cooking varies greatly throughout the world, and kitchens present themselves in numerous ways around the world as well, but there is no denying that over time cooking and kitchens have embodied transculturality. Transculturation in the kitchen appears in my life in many places and in various ways.                                                I'm from Queens, New York. My loc...