Alain Corbin is a professor at University of Paris I Panth�on Sorbonne. He is the leading figure among French historians who have concentrated on "ordinary people." Known for his originality and iconoclastic work, Corbin is the author of The Foul and the Fragrant, The Lure of the Sea,and, most recently, Village Bells: The Culture of the Senses in Nineteenth-Century French Countryside.He lives in Paris, France.