Susanne Schmitt is a social and cultural anthropologist interested in design, emotion, atmosphere, and multispecies ethnography. She studied in Heidelberg, Munich, Portland (USA), Shanghai, Loughborough (UK), and Amsterdam and holds a PhD and MA from the Ludwig Maximilian University. Her work is strongly informed by sensory ethnography and the anthropology of the senses; she has explored a medical museum as a workplace and site of contested ideas about sensory exhibition making and pedagogy. Susanne has been a research associate at the department of sociology in Ludwig Maximilian University and as a scholar-in-residence at the Sense Lab in Montreal, Canada. At the RCC she is working on her installation-based and ethnographic project entitled "Decorative Ecologies,"which explores the transnational aquarium design scene and ways of living with sub-aquatic forms of life at home. In addition to her academic work, Susanne works in artistic collaboration, exhibition making, and design ethnography/consulting.
Selected publications:
- Ein Wissenschaftsmuseum geht unter die Haut. Sensorische Ethnographie des Deutschen Hygiene Museums. Bielefeld: transcript, 2011.
- "The Funeral Fiesta at the Science Museum: Translating Sensory Contexts and Representing the Mexican Día de los Muertos in an Exhibition on Food." Anthrovisions 1, no. 1 (2013).
- "Media of desire? Olfactory Aesthetics and Olfactory Agency in an Exhibit on Human Sexuality." In Arts and Aesthetics in a Globalizing World, edited by Raminder Kaur. London: Berg, 2014. (in press)