For something so common, shit has an oddly powerful hold on our lives. Not just physically, but socially and politically. In Dominique Laporte’s History of Shit, he makes a bold claim: the State is the sewer. Seems strange to call the state a sewer at first, but when you break it down, it makes perfect […]
Shit: What Civilization Hides Read More »
In this week’s readings and discussions, we dove into the evolution of human waste, and how the connotations of shit changed through time. It is interesting to think about how something natural like human waste has been perceived in the modern day, especially since past perceptions of it have been relatively positive. In many cultures
The Modern View of Shit Read More »
For me, the most interesting pieces of the readings on shit that we covered this past week revolved around the role that shit played in colonial practices and racial discrimination. One of the examples that stuck with me was from the paper, Excrementalisms: revaluing what we have only ever known as waste, by Daniel Gerling.
Sanitary Imperialism Read More »
In our recent readings, we have discussed the relevance of culture on cleaning practices. For example, in previous weeks, we discussed how different religions and cultures have a long past of practices, legend, and history with cleaning– that led to different practices with self-cleaning and home-cleaning. Similar to this practice of cleaning, a question should
Is shit learned disgust or programmed disgust? Read More »
I found the readings this week on shit to be very interesting, as I never previously thought about shit as something that is so entangled in concepts of political economy and power structures; rather, I tended to look at shit as mainly just the waste that we produce. The fact that shit can be studied
Personal Reflection on Shit Read More »
Shit is something we all produce, but yet we don’t really talk about it. Before taking this class, I never really had a conversation on “shit” or even thought of “shit”. But now that I am thinking of it, I believe that since we were kids, we were told it is disgusting, shameful, something to
Shit, shame, And Seeing Things Differently. Read More »
The readings this week were illuminating in that I never really thought about how waste was utilized historically or how it may be utilized in the future. To call it waste in itself is not entirely true, although I believe that some inherent disgust exists around shit (negative feeling tones involved with smelling it), it
reflecting on shit and it’s usefulness Read More »
Questions this week: What’s more ‘natural’ than expelling shit, our body’s waste? Has this substance always been seen as waste? What can examining the political histories of our shit removal infrastructures tell us about common assumptions around cleanliness, poverty and wealth, and race? Is our disgust around shit, and the speed we try to get