Synopses & Reviews
Without a master, one cannot be cleaned....If language is beautiful, it must be because a master bathes it -- a master who cleans shit holes, sweeps offal, and expurgates city and speech to confer on them order and beauty.
-- from History of Shit
Written in Paris after the heady days of student revolt in May 1968 and before the devastation of the AIDS epidemic, History of Shit is emblematic of a wild and adventurous strain of 1970s' theoretical writing that attempted to marry theory, politics, sexuality, pleasure, experimentation, and humor. Radically redefining dialectical thought and post-Marxist politics, it takes an important -- and irreverent -- position alongside the works of such postmodern thinkers as Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, and Lyotard.
Laporte's eccentric style and ironic sensibility combine in an inquiry that is provocative, humorous, and intellectually exhilarating. Debunking all humanist mythology about the grandeur of civilization, History of Shit suggests instead that the management of human waste is crucial to our identities as modern individuals -- including the organization of the city, the rise of the nation-state, the development of capitalism, and the mandate for clean and proper language. Far from rising above the muck, Laporte argues, we are thoroughly mired in it, particularly when we appear our most clean and hygienic.
Laporte's style of writing is itself an attack on our desire for "clean language." Littered with lengthy quotations and obscure allusions, and adamantly refusing to follow a linear argument, History of Shit breaks the rules and challenges the conventions of "proper" academic discourse.
Review
The new release from MIT Press delves into a subject that may spark an e-coli scare. Rubber gloves and a face mask are unnecessary but an interest in virtually unmentionable acts and socially uncomfortable ideas could be useful.
According to Dominique Laportes treatise, The History of Shit, one of the most significant results of human production is also its most base. Analyzing society and culture from the bottom up, no pun intended, Laporte historically documents the relationship human beings have had with their own feces and the resultant norms, laws, rituals, inventions and even architecture and landscape architecture. As the author states, "To touch, even lightly, on the relationship of a subject to his shit, is to modify not only the subjects relationship to the totality of his body, but his very relationship to the world
and society."
Originally published in 1978 during the post-student revolt days in France, this work is a part of a theoretical ideology that hoped to produce unique and innovative ways to scrutinize the world. Scatology, as a tool for cultural analysis, could easily be dismissed for its shock value or novelty. Though often comical and seemingly mocking of academic discourse, The History of Shit overcomes such a dismissal because of its thorough and compelling presentation of the topic.
Edicts demanding the removal of shit from language and from the city, cults worshipping shit, shit as skin toner, the social status of shit, the smell of shit, shit as detergent, shit ingested for longevity and, most important, shit as commodity or resource -- just a few of the ideas that play a part in Laportes discussion of the constantly fluctuating involvement people have with excrement.
Throughout the book, "shit" is described not only as a literal meaning but also as a metaphor for the unwanted. In this way, shit is more of a concept regarding objects, ideas and practices that have been dubbed undesirable by a given society. This allows Laportes thesis to have wider reaching implications while providing interesting documentation of the ways shit has been managed and used, sometimes frighteningly, by various cultures.
In our age of recycling it is poignant that a treatise on waste and embodying a theme of, "one persons shit is another persons gold," can be weighed for its significance. The History of Shit becomes a tome metering humankinds lack of foresight and its ambivalence when it comes to waste. As Laporte points out, "That which occupies the site of disgust at one moment in history is not necessarily disgusting at the proceeding moment or the subsequent one." Standing on the shoulders of the past, as we do through Laporte, the view of historys shit piles remind us of a valuable lesson. That lesson is, and should be remembered as a fundamental tenant of environmental stewardship, that possibly within our own modern day crap or waste or by-product or filth is a resource yet overlooked.
Here we can make a leap from Laportes ideology to the practices of architecture, landscape architecture and urban design. Though such correlation is not often strongly made in the text, carry over of the idea is not difficult and lends itself to imaginative possibilities. As populations continue to boom, the idea of a wasted (shit) space becomes impossible and impractical. We must continue to consider that instead of eating up undisturbed areas we should pursue designs that reuse and reclaim places once discarded. Vacant lots, nuclear test sites, mines, decaying structures and abandoned amusement parks, to name a few, are rife with opportunity to become valuable again.
Further discussion and investigations into the unusual perspectives broached by The History of Shit will expand contemporary thinking and hopefully promote proactive uses of shit (the unwanted and the discarded) instead of repeating historical misfortunes. Dru Siley, Loud Paper
Review
"The History of Shit is mesmerizing, important, and inspired, a perfectly balanced work where the unearthed information is as voluminous and revealing as Laporte's prose is fascinatingly abridged and exquisite." Dennis Cooper, author of Frisk
Review
"According to Jacques Lacan, humans distinguish themselves from animals in the moment shit becomes for them an embarrassing leftover, a source of shame, something to be secretly disposed of. As such, shit casts its shadow even at the most sublime moments of human experience. In ancient Greek theaters, a hole in the middle of the large stone seats in the front rows allowed members of the privileged classes to undergo double catharsis -- a spiritual purification by which their souls were cleansed of bad emotions and a bodily purification to eliminate bad-smelling excrement. Far from being a theoretical joke about the unmentionable 'that,' Laporte's History of Shit confronts the most fundamental issues of what it means to be human. This book is a test for anyone who claims, 'nothing is foreign to me!'"
Slavoj Zizek
Synopsis
Written in Paris after the heady days of student revolt in May 1968 and before the devastation of the AIDS epidemic, "History of Shit is emblematic of a wild and adventurous strain of 1970s' theoretical writing that attempted to marry theory, politics, sexuality, pleasure, experimentation, and humor. Radically redefining dialectical thought and post-Marxist politics, it takes an important--and irreverent--position alongside the works of such postmodern thinkers as Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, and Lyotard.Laporte's eccentric style and ironic sensibility combine in an inquiry that is provocative, humorous, and intellectually exhilarating. Debunking all humanist mythology about the grandeur of civilization, "History of Shit suggests instead that the management of human waste is crucial to our identities as modern individuals--including the organization of the city, the rise of the nation-state, the development of capitalism, and the mandate for clean and proper language. Far from rising above the muck, Laporte argues, we are thoroughly mired in it, particularly when we appear our most clean and hygienic.Laporte's style of writing is itself an attack on our desire for "clean language." Littered with lengthy quotations and obscure allusions, and adamantly refusing to follow a linear argument, "History of Shit breaks the rules and challenges the conventions of "proper" academic discourse.
Synopsis
Laporte's style of writing is itself an attack on our desire for clean language. Littered with lengthy quotations and obscure allusions, and adamantly refusing to follow a linear argument, History of Shit breaks the rules and challenges the conventions of proper academic discourse.
Synopsis
A historically and culturally revealing—and entertaining—discourse on human excrement and its impact on society.
Synopsis
Written in Paris after the heady days of student revolt in May 1968 and before the devastation of the AIDS epidemic,
About the Author
DOMINIQUE LAPORTE, who died in 1984 at the age of thirty-five, was a psychoanalyst and the coauthor of Français national: politique et practiques de la langue nationale sous la Revolution Française.