Olfactory Order and the Non-Discursive Power of Modernity: Reading Patrick Süskind’s Perfume

This paper offers a sociological interpretation of olfaction as an under-integrated dimension of modern power. While the sociology of the senses has explored the cultural and symbolic meanings of scent, its role in shaping social ordering remains less explicitly theorized. Reading Perfume: The Story of a Murderer as a form of speculative sociology, the paper examines how smell operates as a medium of classification, exclusion, and affective orientation. Through the figure of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the analysis highlights how sensory absence and olfactory mastery reveal the importance of perceptual participation in processes of social recognition. Rather than proposing olfaction as an alternative framework, the paper shows how it clarifies the sensory and affective conditions through which power is exercised. In doing so, it contributes to a more integrated understanding of how social order is sustained not only through discourse and representation, but also through the embodied organization of perception.