Disgust

This article challenges the common tendency in modern research to treat impurity as a religious phenomenon divorced from mundane concerns. Employing the cross-cultural psychological notion of “contagion,” this investigation examines the usage of terms for pollution and purity in Hittite and Akkadian as they relate to distinct domains of human experience, specifically: uncleanness, infection and transgression. Special attention is given to the use of these terms in reference to infectious disease. This analysis demonstrates the real-world experiential basis for notions of impurity and also provides a new perspective to shed light on the peculiarities of each culture (e.g. the absence of an Akkadian term for “pollution”). The article concludes with a detailed excurses on the etymology of Akkadian musukku and its relation to Sumerian (m)uzug.

There is a growing evidence that emotions shape people's reactions to the climate crisis in profound but complex ways. Climate emotions are related to resilience, climate action, and psychological well-being and health. However, there is currently a lack of research about the array of various climate emotions. There is also a need for more integration with general research about emotions. This article conducts a preliminary exploration of the taxonomy of climate emotions, based on literature reviews and philosophical discussion. The term emotion is used here in a broad sense, as is common in climate emotion research. Because of the urgency of the climate crisis and the lack of previous research, this kind of exploration is aimed to be helpful for both practical climate work and for future research which would include more systematic reviews of the topic. Research items which discuss at least five different climate emotions, based on empirical observations, are used as major sources and a table about them is provided. Climate emotions are discussed on the basis of interdisciplinary research. The article considers many aspects of the phenomena of climate anxiety and climate grief.

In this book, I claim that disgust is an emotion that marks aesthetic conflicts. An aesthetic conflict is a conflict that should neither be understood in moral terms nor in political ones. After analyzing the meaning of the word "disgust", I try to answer the question what disgust is. I evaluate many theories (Rozin's, Angyal's, Kelly's, Miller's, Kolnai's, McGinn's, Schmitz's, etc.), I provide critics, finally, I claim that disgust has to do with what one actually feels to be. Put differently, disgust has to be with our aesthetic identity.

This draft paper starts from Ælfric's Letter to Brother Edward, in which he expresses profound disgust against women who have beer-parties while sitting on the privy. It notes that when Ælfric depicts disgusting bodies they are usually male bodies and reflect his concern with deviant forms of masculinity. Ælfric himself shows a fastidiousness which is linked to his authority as a teacher and ecclesiastic. However, although he does not often dwell on disgusting female bodies, he does seem to connect them to human leakiness, mortality and fallenness.

Human faces are not usually objects of disgust. However, this can be diffuse if there are some kind of malformations or if they are masks of dead peo-ple. Corpses disgust us not only by reminding us of our mortal condition, but also by their associa-tion with immoral acts. This article proposes to an-alyze the relationship between the bodies and fac-es of corpses and their reaction with physical and moral disgust.

Artykuł jest próbą analizy performatywności kategorii estetycznej jaką jest wstręt. Jego celem jest stworzenie bazy podstawowych typów akcji dramaturgicznych, które przysłużą się do analizy wizualności współczesnego teatru w perspektywie coraz częstszego stosowania zabiegu szoku. Autorka w tekście posłużyła się przykładami zaczerpniętymi z dramatów brytyjskich, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem nurtu in-yer- face theater. Na podstawie zaproponowanych typów, podjęto próbę udowodnienia, że współczesny teatr, nie jest możliwy do zinterpretowania bez użycia kategorii wstrętu. Performatywność użyta w tej pracy jest rozumiana jako forma zmuszająca do intelektualnego współuczestnictwa, która ewokuje w zmianę sposobu interpretowania rzeczywistości. Bazując na dramatach brytyjskich autorka dowodzi również, że poprzez użycie kategorii wstrętu, współczesne inscenizacje mogą zmieniać sposób postrzegania istotnych problemów społecznych. Praca odnosi się do tez Sarah Ahmed oraz Julii Kristevy.

Słowa kluczowe: estetyka, wstręt, performatywność, teatr

Cet article explore le travail prolifique et controversé de l'actrice Lena Dunham et s'intéresse à trois aspects en particulier : la visibilité relativement récente de corps féminins considérés comme « dégoûtants » dans la culture populaire américaine contemporaine, qui va à l'encontre des injonctions à l'invisibilité et au silence (TMI ou « Too Much Information »); la politique de l'affectivité corrélée au dégoût; le phénomène post-féministe de la body positivity qui découle des deux premiers. Ces aspects entrecroisés et parfois contradictoires au sein de la body positivity permettent, via l'activisme digital notamment, de dénoncer les normes hégémoniques qui pèsent sur les corps féminins et d'impulser de nouvelles formes d'expression, de représentation(s) et de performance des « corps féminins » au sens large du terme.

Traduzione integrale del saggio di Aurel Kolnai Der Ekel, pubblicato sullo Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung nel 1929. Un saggio importante e a lungo dimenticato che influenzò Dalì, Bataille, Sartre.

Allego qui l'introduzione di Kolnai e il § 1 del terzo capitolo del suo libro, sui sensi e il disgusto.

The present article explores the multileveled function of disgust in biblical purity discourse as an embodied emotion, a conceptual framework, and a rhetorical strategy. The methodological approach is broadly evolutionary (biopsychological) and cognitive-conceptual, including insights from neuroscience and linguistics (metaphor and blending theories). The texts referred to and analyzed represent a variety of genres (legal, narrative, prophetic) and are selected to illustrate different aspects and functions of disgust, ranging from ritual indexing and taboos, to moral indignation and general value judgments, to ostracism and ethnocentrism. The aim is to demonstrate how biological underpinnings and cultural constructions of disgust interact and thereby provide resources for a better understanding of impurity and disgust reflected in biblical texts. The argument builds on my previous studies on impurity and disgust and incorporates some of their analyses and conclusions.

Aurel Kolnai (1900–1973) is best known for his political and moral writings, but he also chiefly contributed to the phenomenology of the emotions. In a series of papers devoted to hostile and aversive emotions and, in particular, to disgust, haughty pride, fear, and hatred (Kolnai 1929, 1931, 1935 and 1998) Kolnai presents his most comprehensive views on the affective life and its ethical significance. Scattered discussions on the emotions can also be found in an early paper written on Scheler and under the influence of psychoanalysis (1925), in his dissertation Der ethische Wert und die Wirklichkeit (Ethical Value and Reality) (1927), which is his first phenomenological writing, and in later papers “On the Concept of the Interesting” (1964) and “The Concept of Hierarchy” (1971).
This chapter is divided into four sections. The first reconstructs Kolnai’s general approach to the emotions as embedded within the larger context of early phenomenology. Sections 2–4 present Kolnai’s analyses of hostile emotions by focusing on disgust, haughty pride, and hatred.

Una nuova forma di incredulità, diceva Bernard Stigler in riferimento a quella che chiamava "immagine discreta", ma questa incredulità si dovrà pur esercitare su un corpo.
Proprio su questo gioca Maisie Cousins (n. Londra 1992 – vivente), giovane fotografa inglese, della quale analizziamo un corpus di sette fotografie selezionate dalla sua produzione.
A questo scopo, approfondiremo il concetto di visione aptica, per disambiguare il meccanismo attraverso il quale vista e tatto si influenzano. Ci concentreremo inoltre sulla dimensione forica che attraversa questo insieme complesso ed avanzeremo ipotesi in merito all’effetto di senso che tutto ciò produce.
Proprio in merito alla connivenza di sintassi sensoriali che caratterizza queste immagini, in particolare le prime quattro del nostro corpus (figg. 1-4, §§3-5), specifichiamo che ci concentreremo sul rapporto che la sintassi del tatto intrattiene con la sostanza visiva: anche se le immagini del corpus sarebbero passibili di un’analisi relativa, per esempio, alla sintassi dell’olfatto, ci limiteremo, per esigenze redazionali, a prendere in considerazione solo vista e tatto.
Per quanto invece riguarda le ultime tre foto (figg. 5-7) (che compongono un “Trittico”, §6), ritorneremo specificatamente sul problema dello sguardo.
Infatti, pur sempre in una coerenza tematica e poetica con le altre, in queste gli effetti percettivi prenderanno avvio da una difficoltà di iconismo visivo primario.

From Plato’s dismissal of food as a distraction from thought to Kant’s relegation of the palate to the bottom of the hierarchy of the senses, the sense of taste has consistently been devalued by Western aesthetics. Kant is often invoked as evidence that philosophers consider taste as an inferior sense because it belongs to the realm of the private and subjective and does not seem to be required in the development of higher types of knowledge. From a gastrosophical perspective, however, what Kant perceives as a limitation becomes a new field of enquiry that investigates the dialectics of diet and discourse, self and matter, inside and outside.
The essays in this book examine the importance of food as a pivotal element – both materially and conceptually – in the history of the Western avant-garde. From Gertrude Stein to Alain Robbe-Grillet and Samuel Beckett, from F.T. Marinetti to Andy Warhol, from Marcel Duchamp to Eleanor Antin, the examples chosen explore the conjunction of art and foodstuff in ways that interrogate contemporary notions of the body, language, and subjectivity.

This paper explores how the television series Hannibal (NBC, 2013-2015) conveys a deep aesthetic delectation, despite presenting numerous repulsive or uncomfortable scenes. The article analyzes how the very serial nature of TV fiction enables a specific way of negotiating the paradox of aversion through three textual strategies: a protracted character engagement, a suspense that articulates the aesthetic possibilities of “temporal prolongation”, and a beautiful mise-en-scène for abhorrent visual motives and actions. These three strategies generate an intense fascination in the spectator, allowing to subvert the features of the repugnant.

In a much-publicized paper, Zhong and Liljenquist (2006) reported evidence that feelings of moral cleanliness are grounded in feelings of physical cleanliness: a threat to people’s moral purity leads them to seek, literally, to cleanse themselves. In an attempt to replicate and build upon these findings, we conducted a pilot study in which we unexpectedly failed to replicate the original results from the second study of Zhong and Liljenquist’s report. To investigate the source of this issue, we conducted a series of direct replications of Study 2 as reported in Zhong and Liljenquist (2006). We used the authors’ original materials and methods; we investigated samples that were more representative of the general population than in the original experiments; we investigated samples from different countries and cultures; and we substantially increased the power of our statistical tests. Nevertheless, we still failed to replicate Zhong and Liljenquist’s initial reported findings. Our research suggests that more work is needed to clarify the scope and robustness of the original results.

A proposta de se levar a sério a maneira como a corporalidade e os fluidos corpo- rais são elementos significativos em determinados contextos ainda é relativamente recente na ciência antropológica. Este artigo é uma contribuição nesse sentido, na medida em que procuro descrever e analisar como funciona uma certa erótica da fragmentação corporal e dos fluidos corporais masculinos em um contexto de práti- cas sexuais exclusivas para homens. A partir de dados produzidos em duas pesqui- sas etnográficas sobre encontros de grupos para práticas sexuais grupais ou coletivas aponto como “produtos” corporais tais como secreções, fluidos e excreções são atra- vessados aqui por diversos fatores (principalmente o de gênero) e entram em uma determinada circulação de “economia libidinal”. Atento também para como essa circulação atravessa e distende noções de risco, nojo, repulsa, desejo e excitação.
PALAVRAS-CHAVE: corpo, fluidos, masculinidade, nojo, sexualidade.
A relatively recent approach in anthropological knowledge takes corporality and bodily fluids as significant elements in particular contexts. Within that frame, the article offers description and analysis of the workings of a kind of eroticism drawing on body fragmentation and masculine bodily fluids in the context of group sexual practices exclusive for men. Data resulting from two ethnographic researches among groups that meet to engage in plural or collective sexual encounters shows that bodily “products” such as secretions, fluids and excretions are connected to different fac- tors (mainly gender) and participate in a certain circulation of “libidinal economy”. These exchanges both cut across and extend notions of risk, disgust, repulsion, desire and sexual arousal.
KEYWORDS: body, fluids, masculinity, disgust, sexuality.

After reviewing the theory and history of Disgust which has only taken off since 1990, this paper sets off to explore why and how N. Nikolaides’ Singapore Sling is disgusting and follows a revision of the theory of Abjection as well as its further appropriation and developments. Furthermore, there is an attempt to correlate Disgust with Abjection and by some means enrich the theory of the latter. The theory is then applied to film and is used in order to explore in what ways Singapore Sling could be considered abject(ive) and a ‘ritual of defilement’.

This paper, under Craig Ferguson’s astute critique of American culture, examines how the White American Protestant church has been “Sanitized for your convenience” discarding the dirty or socially uncomfortable in favor of presenting a good face.  This paper will argue that the Jesus of the Bible, though maintaining ritual laws, was unconcerned with cleanliness. Jesus was more likely to spend his time socializing, sharing meals as an equal with those the Church wants to “help” or "save” but not include in membership.  Much like the 12 step programs, of which Ferguson has been a part, Jesus kept company with those who were willing and able to admit their offenses and vices.  As Richard Beck explores in his book Unclean, Jesus evokes all the domains of disgust.  Jesus does this throughout his ministry but particularly hits them in his institution of the sacrament of the Eucharist. In this way he was seeking to push the boundaries of his followers to learn a more authentic way of welcoming the stranger. Many writers today are wringing their hands about the disappearance of white millennials in the church, having found that what they are searching for is a sense of authenticity that seems to, in Ferguson’s terms, be sanitized out.  This paper will explore an embrace of the authentic and disgusting in ourselves and one another, and the willingness to confess it so that we within the Church can truly experience and express the grace and forgiveness Jesus’ welcome offers.

Ph.D-Thesis, Defended February 8, 2016
Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen

Evaluation commitee:
Professor Heidi L. Maibom, Department of Philosophy, University of Cincinnati.
Professor Arne Johan Vetlesen, Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo.
Professor Dan Zahavi (chair), Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen.

Academic advisor: Thomas Brudholm, Minority Studies, University of Copenhagen
Co-Advisor: Søren Gosvig Olesen, Philosophy, University of Copenhagen

Abstract: Some soldiers experience strong emotional outbursts and bodily discomfort – such as disgust, dizziness, fainting, nausea, vomiting and crying – in the moment of committing or witnessing atrocities. This dissertation delivers a systematic examination of this complex phenomenon that I call “perpetrator disgust”. The central point of dispute is the moral significance of perpetrator disgust. Does the perpetrator’s bodily response indicate a subliminal awareness of the moral wrong of the act? I argue that perpetrator disgust can in some cases reflect a moral conflict, but warn against conflating it with a committed moral judgment.

I argue that our best science supports the rationalist idea that, independent of reasoning, emotions aren't integral to moral judgment. There's ample evidence that ordinary moral cognition often involves conscious and unconscious reasoning about an action's outcomes and the agent's role in bringing them about. Emotions can aid in moral reasoning by, for example, drawing one's attention to such information. However, there is no compelling evidence for the decidedly sentimentalist claim that mere feelings are causally necessary or sufficient for making a moral judgment or for treating norms as distinctively moral. I conclude that, even if moral cognition is largely driven by automatic intuitions, these shouldn't be mistaken for emotions or their non-cognitive components. Non-cognitive elements in our psychology may be required for normal moral development and motivation but not necessarily for mature moral judgment.

A review of Jonathan Newell's monograph A Century of Weird Fiction, 1832-1937: Disgust, Metaphysics, and the Aesthetics of Cosmic Horror.  The book focuses on the Weird tale's use of disgust as an affective mode to explore questions of ontology.  Newell's charts a trajectory of such explorations over the course of a century, starting with Edgar Allan Poe and ending with H.P. Lovecraft.

Fear, sadness, anger and disgust are considered affective states, that when they become frequent and intense, adversely affect the quality of life. Consequently, negative emotions are regarded as one of the key risk factors in physical and mental illness. Firstly, this article aims to define precisely concepts and key features of each emotion. The second objective of this paper is to show a synthesis of scientific findings supporting the influence of emotional factors, especially classic negative emotions in the process of health and disease. These psychophysiological phenomena have been associated with mental and physical illness as influencing variables in its initiation, development and maintenance. Therefore, the paper reviews some of the links between these four negative emotions and mental disorders. It also reviews the evidence supporting the influence of negative emotions in the development of risk behaviors to physical health. Finally, we describe some data supporting the impact of psychophysiological activation of emotions in organic systems, such as, for instance, immunity, tumor processes and so on.

The caste order - like all social hierarchies - structures emotions in particular ways, and in turn depends on emotions, thus structured, for its reproduction over time. In North Indian vernaculars, to ask who feels ghṛṇā (disgust) towards whom is often to trace the boundaries of the touchable body politic. Ghṛṇā karnā-doing disgust-describes a set of practices often identical to those known in a political register as 'practices of untouchability.' Thus, ve ham se ghṛṇā karte hain ('they are disgusted by us,' or, better, 'they practice disgust on us') is among the more common ways that Dalits describe their treatment at the hands of privileged castes. This article tracks usages of ghṛṇā in two vernacular North Indian sources from the early twentieth century in order to throw critical light on the inculcation of disgust as advantaged and disadvantaged caste observers have described it. In Hindi tracts composed by members of the Hindu reformist organization the Arya Samaj, ghṛṇā appears as an impediment to the majoritarian project of Hindu encompassment of its erstwhile 'untouchable' other; Arya Samajist polemicists seek to expose Hindu disgust towards Dalits and to redirect it towards new targets. In oral traditions that circulated among Dalit castes engaged in sanitation labour in the late colonial period, parables of encounter between 'touchable' and 'untouchable' give utterance to a critique of ghṛṇā as antithetical to moral action and as opposed to life. Grounded in historical and ethnographic evidence, the article develops preliminary ideas towards an affective theory of caste and untouchability.

It is important to pay attention to the Acridophages’ phenomenon, because there are
ongoing attempts in order to extend the use of locusts as worldwide food, as showed by the Fao
documents or by the initiatives organized by the 2015 Expo about food. The essay retraces the
history of locust-eaters in the relationship with Western civilization, starting from the studies of
the sixteenth-century scientists; according to these scholars locusts were good just for medical
purposes. This survey dates back till the origin of the knowledge of the Acridophages thanks to
Herodotus and Diodorus of Sicily, and then examines in depth its “identification” during Modern
Age and in several regions of the world.

This essay reinterprets Kundera’s best-known novel through philosophical considerations of vulnerability and the human/animal relationship. It begins with an understanding of irony—associated with Cora Diamond’s notion of embodiment shared by humans and animals—as a counter to Cartesian mastery of nature. It turns to the denial of embodiment through shame and disgust, as theorized by Martha Nussbaum and illustrated with several characters. One main character, Tereza, stands out against a normotic backdrop of human disembodiment (which Kundera calls kitsch). Her acceptance of vulnerability and encounter with shame gradually envelop her spouse, Tomas, as well. The final section examines the novel’s closing pastoral passages, in which a thorough investigation of human and nonhuman animality takes place, leaving the reader somewhere between an extremely empathetic Tereza and a sympathetic but gently skeptical narrator. It describes the novel as a “fallen idyll” where human vulnerability and shame can be expressed and considered.

In his critical and his later work, Kant recommends apathy to the moral agent faced with pathological phenomena. Notoriously, Kant even rejects compassion (Mitleiden) as pathological. A deconstruction of Kant's 'apathology', i.e. of his systematic treatment of compassion, reveals disgust as quasi-transcendental affect at the roots of the moral agent's apathy.

This article examines thirteen terms that connote disgust about food, drink, sex, gods, offerings, prayers, peoples, lands, persons, injustice, and life. The terms form two different “codes” for social orientation. An international, sapiental or ethical “code” emphasizes moral disgust, which is nourished by the love of YHWH and lady wisdom. A priestly or ethnic “code” is characterized by a rhetoric of disgust, which functions to deter people from non-Yahwistic laws of the nations. In this rhetoric, fecal language is used in order to express disgust of idols, the symbols of the gods who order and legitimize foreign laws and customs.