Deodorizing Death

In the midst of my move a couple of months ago, I unearthed this old essay I wrote in grad school, circa 2014. It’s about death, perfume, and cemeteries — all my usual topics. I hadn’t read it in years, but it still sort of holds up, so I figured I’d dust it off and share it here.

*

Around the time of the French Revolution, Western attitudes toward death, disease, and cleanliness underwent a profound transformation. Nowhere is this more evident than in the changing geography of burial and cemetery construction. Across Europe, cemeteries were relocated from the centers of cities to the outskirts. This spatial reorganization reflected a deeper psychological shift: death, once a familiar part of everyday life, became something contagious, distanced, managed, and contained.