Ugh! Disgust, Repugnant Matters and the Construction of Difference was an international workshop which took place via Zoom on December 3 and 4, 2021, gathering nineteen scholars in various disciplines from across the globe. Their aim was to collaborate on exploring disgust and its social function as a marker of difference in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The workshop built on existing scholarship in the field and further examined disgust as an emotion that can define the limits of socially acceptable behaviour. The aim of the first of these two workshops was to discuss and reflect upon a range of methodological questions about the relationship between disgust, matter and difference by placing it within a historical context.
The first panel addressed repulsive animality. NICOLO PAOLO P. LUDOVICE (Hong Kong) explored how middle-class white women used disgust towards animals to articulate colonial domesticity and the racial boundaries distinguishing them from local populations. These women had moved to the Philippines mostly from the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. Drawing on the memoirs and correspondences of three American women and their encounters with animals in the Philippines, Ludovice argued that such documents provide insight into the role of disgust in the writing of the Self and processes of Othering in a colonial context. Such sources also brought key methodological challenges to the fore, not least the lack of documents from populations associated with animals perceived as repulsive. This led to discussion about what disgust meant during this period, as well as the multifaceted ways that disgust might be used in colonial spaces.
ANDREW WELLS (Dresden) then examined the role that disgust towards animals played in determining species in the long eighteenth century. He also discussed how this form of disgust was used by racial theorists to justify the differences between people and to reject interracial relationships. In doing so, he showed that the attempt to clearly divide species contributed to the invocation of ideas of the ‘interbreeding criterion’ in racial arguments. In the following discussion, the question of the influence of this debate on the abolition of the slave trade was raised. Furthermore, the extent to which disgust by animals can be interpreted or whether it would rather be projected onto the animals was discussed.
The second panel, which addressed colonialism, othering, and repugnance, began with SARAH-MARIA SCHOBER (Zurich). She considered reactions of disgust and their political role in early modern travel accounts of global contacts, focusing on the sense of disgust that non-Europeans showed towards European travellers. To this end, Schober examined the circular nature of disgusted and disgusting in the case of trade objects, as well as the expansion of these ‘disgust circles’ into a complex system during the Macartney Mission to China from 1792 to 1794. The idea of disgust networks, as well as disgust as a trope of travel writing, was reviewed. Whether these papers investigate disgust as an emotion, or rather as a tool, was also discussed. Schober's comments on the methodological challenges of studying disgust responses provided the basis for a fruitful exchange.
OLGA TRUFANOVA (Munich/Regensburg) shared her ideas on disgust reactions to Siberian food in the travelogues of the Second Kamchatka expedition. She examined the food practices that evoked disgust, the description of the emotion in the accounts, and their functions for individuals, as well as the image of imperial Russia. Particular attention was paid to the influence of the Enlightenment and colonial thought. With this contribution, Trufanova emphasized the emotions that accompany food and referred to the perception of disgust both on a mental and physical level. In the discussion that followed, the roles of religion and medicine were addressed.
The search for disgust in text and photography was the focus of the third panel. As a follow-up to Winfried Mennighaus’ Disgust: Theory and History of a Strong Sensation, ÂRASH AMINIAN TABRIZI (New York) explained the significance of a footnote on disgust in Johann Adolf Schlegel's translation of Charles Batteux's Les Beaux Arts réduits à un même principe. He pointed out that, in this context, disgust is defined for the first time in its entirety, while taking aesthetics into account. As such, the French word dégoût is given a new dimension. With this contribution, the focus of the discussion turned to the aesthetic and philosophical characteristics of disgust, as well as the connection of disgust to the sublime.
NISHANT K NARAYANAN (Hyderabad) examined the fundamental aspects of the concept of disgust in representations of India by German authors. This was examined both in regard to the self and the other, focusing on aesthetics and exoticism. Disgust is examined from a literary studies perspective as an aesthetic device. Among the writers examined were Günter Grass and Ulrike Draesner. The paper clearly demonstrated the difficulties of definition and vocabulary that accompany the study of the concept of disgust, as well as the relationship between disgust and distance. These two dimensions in the study of the emotion reoccurred throughout the workshop.
The second day of the workshop began with a panel on sanitation and sensory responses to waste, led by GREESHMA JUSTIN JOHN (Hyderabad). She explored the various structures of disgust in colonial sanitation in the Madras Presidency in nineteenth-century British India. Further, she argued that affect and the construction of disgust towards nightsoil was central to the construction of colonial power. In doing so, she found that the management of disgust varied from case to case and in response to colonial positions towards castes. Higher castes experienced more accommodating treatment than lower castes, with their aversion to modern sanitation. This contribution provided a perspective on the influence of disgust on technological discrepancies, whether sanitary or otherwise. Similarities to other systems were also addressed, with reference to England in the 18th century.
NICOLE ELIZABETH BARNES (Durham, USA) presented her findings on the change in the reception of nightsoil in the nineteenth century. Human urine and excrement was respected as a fertilizer but abhorred as a source of disease. Barnes showed how this material lost its social recognition as a result of contact with imperialists from Europe, America and Japan. Referencing the contemporary environmental crisis, she argued for the consideration of historical knowledge in ecological research. In the discussion based on this paper, reference was made to the German and English admiration for the use of nightsoil in China.
In the fifth panel, which explored disgust and the body, İREM YILDIZ (Oxford) presented her research on cognition and experiences of blindness in 19th century Istanbul, showing how blind people were perceived as a threat to state and society. The focus of her study was on the Galata Bridge, a place where hierarchically unequal encounters took place between marginalized people and high-ranking European and Ottoman travellers. The group of the marginalized included blind beggars, perceived as dirty, who experienced increased exclusion as the city became more internationalized. With her contribution, Yıldız demonstrated the connections of disgust to other sensations such as pity and fear. The latter emotion could also be observed in contributions by Nicolo Paolo P. Ludovice and Sarah-Maria Schober.
The contribution of NEBIHA GUIGA (Berlin) dealt with the emotional reactions, disgust in particular, to wounded or deceased soldiers on Napoleonic battlefields. Looking at memoirs and diary entries, she considered both physical and emotional reactions that can be described as disgust. In particular, Guiga pointed out that when human bodies become unrecognisable they evoke disgust; they transform, no longer human but other. On the other hand, she also explored sources that describe a love of war. Her contribution further sharpens the understanding of the connection between disgust and distance.
KATHARINA BURSZTYN (Lucerne) highlighted a fundamental shift in the portrayal of "ideal" skin in 19th century advertising. Instead of being used to defame certain people, impure skin has been used in advertising to make the entire public insecure. Bursztyn explained that cleansing was given prominence as disgust with impure skin was commercialized. Bursztyn stated that the study of advertising sheds light on the mindset of an era without providing a reflection of its social reality. In the discussion that followed, the roles of gender and skin colour were highlighted in particular. The function of skin as a barrier between inside and outside was also addressed.
The last paper was presented by SONAKSHI SRIVASTAVA (Delhi). Her contribution to the third panel was added to the end of this session. In this paper, the aesthetic dimension of disgust in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels was examined with a focus on the disjointedness of the self and the other. The focus was on Part IV of Gulliver's Travels, in which Gulliver himself feels disgust and becomes the object of disgust. Furthermore, parallels are drawn to Charles Darwin's contact with a ‘naked savage’, in which both individuals experienced disgust reactions for different reasons. The discussion that followed included considerations of the addressee of Swift's text.
The workshop concluded with a lively and thought-provoking discussion that addressed many issues central to the study of disgust. Culture emerged as a key concept; disgust is subject to cultural circumstances and is historically specific. In the discussion, it was repeatedly emphasised that disgust can be characterised by both mutual and hierarchical structures. The forms of boundaries and distance constructed by disgust were also intensively addressed in the workshop. Disgust reactions triggered by cultural influences were thereby contrasted with biological reactions. In addition, the intertwining of curiosity and disgust, and curiosity towards the repulsive, was debated. Furthermore, the 1700–1900 were discussed in relation to modernity and the difficulties of defining what disgust meant during those periods. The complexity of its use as a network of influences was highlighted, offering different ways of looking at colonial spaces, animality, the construction of race and what it is to be human, as well as waste and travel writing.
Methodological concerns were another central component of the workshop. The different words for and meanings of disgust were particularly central to the discussion. Analysis of the semantics of disgust reveals the nuances of an emotion which may vary according to social class, ethnicity, and so on. Another consideration is how the structure of language influences its speakers understanding of the emotion. Methodological challenges can also arise from cultural differences and the abstract concept of disgust. Furthermore, disgust is somewhat ambiguous; it is often associated with other emotions such as fear, pity, and shame. This blurs the lines between these different emotions. The search for disgust in historical sources is especially complicated by the fact that it is difficult to identify in sources if not explicitly addressed. The danger of projecting modern ideas onto the object of study was raised repeatedly in the workshop.
Overall, the various contributions to the workshop highlighted a connection between modernity and disgust. The workshop demonstrated the potential of inter-epochal approaches towards a history of emotions. Although disgust is a universal emotion, closer examination shows significant differences in the media, objects and semantics of disgust at the transition from the early modern period to modernity. The methodological possibilities of finding and examining disgust in various forms of historical sources are still worthy of discussion. The research gathered at this workshop will be further discussed in a second workshop in 2022, with the aim of publishing results.
Conference Overview:
Elodie Duché (York) and Franziska Neumann (Braunschweig): Introduction
Panel 1: Repulsive animality
Nicolo Paolo P. Ludovice (Hong Kong): “We keep trained baboons to do housework”: White women, animals, and disgust in the making of colonial domesticity.
Andrew Wells (Dresden): “Go, from the creatures thy instructions take”: Enlightened disgust and the erection of species and racial boundaries.
Panel 2: Colonialism, othering, and repugnance
Sarah-Maria Schober (Zurich): Disgust circles – Disgust systems. Political functions of abjection in global encounters.
Olga Trufanova (Munich/Regenburg): “From the mere look at it a European feels sick”: Dietary discourses and experiences in eighteenth century Siberia.
Panel 3A: Tracing disgust in text and photography
Sonakshi Srivastava (Delhi): “That animal called man”: An enquiry into the aesthetics of disgust in Swift. (Due to technical difficulties on the first day of the workshop, this contribution to Panel 3A was added to the end of the following workshop day.)
Ârash Aminian Tabrizi (New York): Johann Adolf Schlegels’s footnote(s) on Ekel in context.
Panel 3B: Tracing disgust in text and photography
Nishant K Narayanan (Hyderabad): Between the self and the other, the exotic and aesthetics: Disgust in the German romantic discourse about India.
Panel 4: Sanitation and sensory responses to waste
Greeshma Justin John (Hyderabad): Of abominations and fetishes: Colonial sanitation in late-nineteenth-century Madras presidency.
Nicole Elizabeth Barnes (Durham, USA): Night soil and noses: Imperial encounters with China’s farmlands in the nineteenth century.
Panel 5: Disgust and the body
İrem Yıldız (Oxford): Spectacle of the blind beggar in Ottoman Istanbul: Disability in the urban setting during the late nineteenth century.
Nebiha Guiga (Berlin): Piles of limbs and human souls: Disgust and distancing towards wounded soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars.
Katharina Bursztyn (Lucerne): Impure skin: The commodification of rejection in nineteenth-century Swiss cosmetic advertisements.
Sonakshi Srivastava (Delhi): “That animal called man”: An enquiry into the aesthetics of disgust in Swift.