Olfactory Research Notes: Vanilla as a Commodity, with Eric Jennings

Olfactory Research Notes is a new lecture series that presents important research done in olfaction, directly from the people who do it.

Toronto-based Professor Eric Jennings joins the Institute for Art and Olfaction for an online talk relating to his research on vanilla, from its botanical origins to current status as ubiquitous flavor and fragrance. During this talk, Professor Jennings will discuss the industrial production of vanilla, with a special focus on the history of the colonial empires' rivalries in developing vanilla production for food and especially fragrance.

Join us as Jennings shares insight on the history of vanilla as a global commodity derived from his research and recently-published book titled Vanilla, The History of an Extraordinary Bean (2025).

Learn more about the book and order a copy from Yale University Press.

ABOUT ERIC JENNINGS

Eric Jennings (PhD UC Berkeley, 1998) is a historian at the University of Toronto (Victoria College). His areas of expertise include modern France, French colonialism, decolonization, and the francophone world. His latest book, just released by Yale University Press in English and forthcoming with CNRS Éditions in French, is a history of vanilla as a global commodity, titled Vanilla, The History of an Extraordinary Bean. He is the author of some seventy refereed articles and chapters as well as eight solo books and an edited volume. The vast majority have appeared in both French and English; one has also been translated in Vietnamese, and is now in its second edition in that language.

Jennings is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Chevalier in the French Ordre des palmes académiques. Since 2015, he has held the University of Toronto’s Distinguished Professorship in the History of France & the Francophonie. In 2014, he obtained a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship. He has twice held Jackman Research Fellowships in the Humanities. His work has garnered six Standard/Insight SSRHC grants, one CIHR grant, and he is part of a team project supported by the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche. His research has taken him to archives on six continents. On top of English, French and Vietnamese, his work has appeared in Bengali, Korean, Hebrew, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and German.

His solo books have received multiple book prizes. Vichy in the Tropics won the Alf Heggoy Prize from the French Colonial Historical Society. A la cure, les Coloniaux! (original title Curing the Colonizers) obtained the Prix Jean-François Coste. La France Libre fut Africaine won two awards: the Prix Maryse Condé and the Prix des Ambassadeurs, the latter selected by a panel of foreign ambassadors in Paris. Escape from Vichy, which he translated into French himself (les Bateaux de l’Espoir) obtained prizes in both languages: the Gilbert Chinard Prize for the English edition, the Prix Delavignette and the Prix du Livre des Outre-mer for the French one.

Photo credit: Lorne Bridgeman.

ATTENDANCE AND REFUND POLICY

This is an online class that will take place on Zoom. The Zoom link will be sent by email approximately 24 hours before the class. Lest this email end up in your spam folder, please be sure to add [email protected] and [email protected] to your address book.

+ Learn more about how we teach and our community guidelines here: https://artandolfaction.com/newcomers/.

+ We will upload the class recording after the end of the session, and share it for 7 days with attendees. This video is view-only, and expires at the end of the 7 day window.

+ Unfortunately, we cannot offer refunds or credit for this class. Note also that event tickets are non-transferable.

Host or Publisher The Institute for Art and Olfaction