My project for this year, 2020 is a philosophical investigation of scent in Japanese culture. I arrived in Japan from Italy a few days before the border closed, thanks to the precious support of Canon Foundation, and despite the many canceled events, the cultural environment of Kyoto University and Kyoto is still full of life. I am approaching my topic through modern and premodern Japanese sources, literary and philosophical, and a book project is rapidly taking form. After getting my PhD, I was struggling to stay in academia despite all my efforts: this one year Research grant as a Canon Foundation Fellow, however, is making a huge impact both in my output as a scholar and in my chances of keep doing research in the near future.