Purity and Danger
OCLC 50333732 | | |
Preceded by | The Lele of the Kasai | |
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Followed by | Natural Symbols |
Part of a series on |
Anthropology of religion |
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Social and cultural anthropology |
Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo is a 1966 book by the anthropologist and cultural theorist
Summary
The line of inquiry in Purity and Danger traces the words and meaning of dirt in different contexts. What is regarded as dirt in a given society is any matter considered out of place. (Douglas took that lead from William James.) She attempted to clarify the differences between the sacred, the clean and the unclean in different societies and times, but that did not entail judging religions as pessimistic or optimistic in their understanding of purity or dirt, such as dirt-affirming or otherwise. Through a complex and sophisticated reading of ritual, religion and lifestyle, Douglas challenged Western ideas of pollution and clarified how context and social history are essential.
As an example of that approach, Douglas first proposed that the
.Later, in a 2002 preface to Purity and Danger, Douglas went on to retract this explanation of the kosher rules and said that it had been "a major mistake". Instead, she proposed that "the dietary laws intricately model the body and the altar upon one another". For instance, among land animals, Israelites were allowed to eat animals only if they were allowed to be sacrificed as well: animals that depend on herdsmen. Douglas concluded from that that animals that are abominable to eat are not in fact impure but that "it is abominable to harm them". She claimed that later interpreters (even later Biblical authors) had misunderstood this.
Influence
A historian of
In Powers of Horror (1980), Julia Kristeva elaborates her theory of abjection and recognises the influence of Douglas's "fundamental work" but criticises certain aspects of her approach.[2]
Publication history
- — (1966). Purity and danger: An analysis of the concepts of pollution and taboo (1st ed.). OCLC 4881280.
- — (1966). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. New York City: OCLC 1617121.
- — (1984). Purity and danger: An analysis of the concepts of pollution and taboo. London: OCLC 12451903.
- — (1996). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. Mary Douglas: Collected Works. Vol. 2. London: Routledge. OCLC 39189620.
- — (2002-09-12). Purity and danger: An analysis of concept of pollution and taboo. Routledge Classics. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-28995-5. (with new preface by Mary Douglas)
- — (2003). Purity and danger: An analysis of concept of pollution and taboo. Routledge Classics. Routledge. OCLC 7390553996. Excerpt
- — (2003). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. Mary Douglas: Collected Works. Vol. 2. Routledge.
- — (2013-06-17). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo (ebook). Mary Douglas: Collected Works. Vol. 2. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-31501581-1.
Reviews
- doi:10.2307/2798681.
- Beidelman, Thomas O. (1966). "[Review of Purity and Danger : An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, by M. Douglas]". Anthropos. 61 (3). Nomos Verlag: 907–908. JSTOR 40458397.
- ISSN 0002-9602. (also dealing with Douglas's later book, Natural Symbols).
- Datta, Ronjon Paul (2005). "Book Review: Purity and Danger" (PDF). Anthropological Theory. 5 (3): 301–302. ISSN 1463-4996.
- Davidoff, Leonore (19 May 1995). "Speaking Volumes: Purity and Danger". Times Higher Education Supplement. Archivedfrom the original on 2011-12-11. Retrieved 22 March 2010.
- JSTOR 611049.
- Kunz, Phillip R. (1969). "Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo". Review of Religious Research. 10 (2): 114–115. doi:10.2307/3510915.
- Madge, Charles (1967). "[Review of Purity and Danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo, by M. Douglas]". Sociology. 1 (2): 209–210. JSTOR 42850525.
- McCormack, William; Douglas, Mary (Autumn 1967). "Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo". doi:10.2307/1384077.
- Roux, J.-P. (1968). "[Review of Purity and Danger. An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo, by M. Douglas]". Revue de l’histoire Des Religions. 174 (2): 229–229. JSTOR 23668319.
- Spiro, Melford E. (1968). "[Review of Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, by M. Douglas]". JSTOR 671165.
- Tamney, Joseph B. (1967). "Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo". Sociological Analysis. 28 (1): 56–57. doi:10.2307/3710425.
Further reading
- Baumgarten, Albert I. (2020-09-01). "The preface to the Hebrew translation of Purity and Danger". Religion and Society. 11 (1): 30–44. ISSN 2150-9298.
- Belton, Padraig (2018-02-19). A Macat analysis: Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger. The Macat Library. Macat International / Routledge. ISBN 978-1-912303-92-2.
- Duschinsky, Robbie (2013). "The politics of purity: When, actually, is dirt matter out of place?" (PDF). Thesis Eleven. 119 (1): 63–77. ISSN 0725-5136.
- Duschinsky, Robbie; Schnall, Simone; Weiss, Daniel H., eds. (2017-01-12). Purity and Danger now: New perspectives. Routledge. via Book2Look
- Klawans, Jonathan (2003). "Rethinking Leviticus and rereading Purity and Danger". AJS Review. 27 (1): 89–101. JSTOR 4131770.
- Lemos, T. M. (2009). "The universal and the particular: Mary Douglas and the politics of impurity" (PDF). The Journal of Religion. 89 (2): 236–251. JSTOR 10.1086/596070.
See also
References
- .
- ^ Kristeva, Julia, Trans. Leon Roudiez (1982). Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Columbia University Press: 65-67.
Bibliography
- Richard Fardon, Mary Douglas: An Intellectual Biography (London: Routledge, 1999), ch. 4.