Purity and Danger Now

“If Purity and Danger Now were simply a reappraisal of an anthropological classic, it would already be a welcome and timely contribution to the many disciplines her work has affected. To its credit, this collection does much more than that. Whereas Douglas highlighted the primacy of the social in structuring categories of purity and impurity, her influential point is here extended, complemented, and corrected by recent insights from social psychological analyses of disgust, new approaches to the agency of matter, and innovative scholarly trends in Judaic studies, literature, and painting.” Christopher Forth, University of Kansas, USA “Few edited collections work as a whole in the way Purity and Danger Now does; from the introduction through to the conclusion, every chapter is accessible, interesting and, most importantly, makes the reader think more about their own ideas. In addition to being a timely reconsideration and development of Mary Douglas’s important work, the book stands on its own as a major contribution to psychosocial and cultural theorisation. It is a book to buy, treasure and keep for any student and researcher across the social sciences, humanities and arts.” Debbie Epstein, University of Roehampton, UK Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo is available as a Routledge Classic text www.routledge.com/9780415289955