Dr. Monica Black
Book Details
Title
Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo
Author
Award Year
ISBN
9781138127142
Honoree Information
Dr. Monica Black
Position
Professor
Department
History
Occasion
On the occasion of Dr. Monica Black's promotion to Professor
Why Chosen
Purity and Danger was the book that first fascinated me, as a historian, with anthropologists' way of posing questions. In this towering classic of British social anthropology, Professor Douglas forces us completely to rethink something we really never think about at all: dirt. But trust me, once you pose the question, "what is dirt?" you can never think about filth (and its structural counterpart, purity) in the same way again.