Speaker: Hyoungee Kong
Organized in collaboration with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, this talk examines the advertising campaign for Amaryllis du Japon, the signature fragrance of the perfumery Delettrez at the fin de siècle, as a case study of the homoerotic dynamics of visual culture for middle-class women of the period. Prof Kong argues that the campaign’s central motif, the kimono-clad coquette, seduced female viewers and prospective consumers by evoking the intersecting discourses on Japanese femininity, floral scents, and olfactory arousal.
The japonesque coquette promised exotic pleasures associated with the sapphic sensuality attributed to fashionable Parisiennes, both real and imagined. In her talk, Prof. Kong uses an analytical framework that ventures outside a heteronormative construction of female spectatorship and demonstrates the advertising campaign’s homoerotic appeal as well as a period concern for it.