History of Shit

By Dominique Laporte

Book Overview

"A brilliant account of the politics of shit. It will leave you speechless."

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262621606
• ISBN13: 9780262621601
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: MIT Press
• Length: 175 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.7" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

NOT about scatological humor

Although it is hilarious in parts, it is actually a pretty sober piece of scholarship, albeit written in the dank hull of that "ship" rather than on the impeccably clean and respectable captain's deck, as it were. The spirit with which this book is written, makes it a sort of lesser cousin to Louis Aragon's Treatise on Style.The content basically traces the (political and economic) history of the problem of getting rid of human excrement and other bodily productions, including, ultimately, foul language and obnoxious thought -- as defined by the State and Royal Science. Arguing for the paralell between the history of subjectivity and the history of 'merde' in all its multifarious forms, Laporte centers his thesis on the (Freudian) idea that the rise of the subject and subjectivity is intimately tied to the decline of the olfactory sense (the public organ par excellence) and its replacement by the optical (the organ of privation). Laporte explores the subsequent tensions that came to define modernity's agenda in the space between the private nose and the public eye.Discussed here, in a style of writing that is so erratic and meandering (at high speeds) that it comes close to derailing altogether, are Egyptian rites and Roman laws, furniture design, urban planning, and medieval edicts concerning burials (so as to minimize the spread of "morbidific rays" emitted by the decomposing dead). Body, bed, building, tomb, and tomes are all examined in their association with the ever-present tyranny/blessing of the cloacal, the miasmic and the mephitic. The problem of properly disposing human 'merde' has consequences far beyond the water closet and beyond the little container (the cranium) that contains that most most fertile producer of foul ideas -- the brain. An excellent peek by way of Poopology to another take on the History of Control. Warning: As the content of this book is not bathroom humor, the illiterate or the poorly educated cannot reasonably expect to get any pleasure out of this small but pungent book. Avoid this unless you are familiar with European intellectual history.

Delightful seriocomic glimpse into a misunderstood world

Once I got past the unusual odor upon opening this book I couldn't put it down. The kind of book you want to put into the lavoratory for your guests to read when using the facilities The preforated tear out pages remind the old timers what Montgomery Ward and Sears catalogs were once used for.

Good book

this is a good book and i recommend it.