The Smell of Scotland: History, Heritage and Practice

Dr Xuelei Huang brings The Smell of Scotland to Augustine United Church on Thursday 11 February 2027, from 6pm to 8pm. It's a talk that takes an olfactory tour of Scotland's 'smellscapes'—the scent of yellow gorse and Scotch whisky, the stench of medieval Edinburgh, and the smoky air of industrial Glasgow. Huang's argument is that odours do more than just trigger memory: they shape history and are entangled with the country's environment, industrial identity, and global connections.

Before the main talk, early-career researcher Gemma McLean-Carr gives a short presentation titled Seeing Stench: Race, Identity and Odour in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Scotland. That's followed by a Q&A, and from about 7pm there's a free drinks reception. The whole evening is part of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland's 2026-27 public events programme, a hybrid series of free lectures, panel discussions, and debates open to all that runs from October 2026 to April 2027, with each session fronted by a ten-minute talk from an early-career researcher.

Dr Huang is a Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies and Sensory History at the University of Edinburgh. She wrote Scents of China: A Modern History of Smell (Cambridge, 2023), co-edited Sensing China (Routledge, 2022), and co-edited the special issue The Smell of Scotland: Deodorisation, Identity, Worldmaking in The Scottish Historical Review (August 2026). This talk is a hybrid event, so you can catch it in person at the church or follow the live stream online.

Doors open at 5:45pm at Augustine United Church, 41 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EL. Entry is free.