Taboo

First published in 1988, this volume redefined the anthropological study of menstrual customs. Examining cultures as diverse as long-house dwellers in North Borneo, African farmers, Welsh housewives, and postindustrial American workers, it challenged the previously widespread image of a universal "menstrual taboo" as well as the common assumption of universal female subordination that underlay it. Offering feminist perspectives on comparative gender politics and symbolism, the book has interested students and scholars in anthropology, women's studies, religion, and comparative health systems. Originally listed as a “Notable” book in Choice, it later won the first Most Enduring Edited Collection Prize, awarded by the Council for the Anthropology of Reproduction (a unit of the American Anthropological Association.). The book continues to be taught regularly around the world.

What is the right thing to do? This subject of normative inquiry seems to have pervaded into all echelons of theoretical academic circles. While debating a life time about what moral stands we ought to pursue and what beliefs to proscribe, we seem to have forgotten to question the genesis of the concept of morality itself. What is "the good"? And, thus, subsequently, what is "the bad"? This paper attempts to understand the notion of morality by analysing incest, as a practice of master morality. By applying a Nietzschean lens, this paper seeks to understand how morality has changed in the course of time and what it has meant in different epochs that have passed by. More importantly, incest is simply an entry point here to a larger discussion on the meta-ethics of it all. While engaging in a genealogy of morality, we must stop and raise questions about how are we to govern ourselves: by standards of morality prescribed by the times or by a larger understanding of ...

I kødet ligger de største tabuer i antropologien: man må ikke ligge med sit eget kød (incestforbud), og man må ikke spise sit eget kød (kannibalisme). Navnkundige tænkere i antropologien som Claude Lévi-Strauss og Marshall Sahlins anfører i deres analyser om tabuer, at der er god grund til, at disse opstod. Det kræver markante tiltag, hvis det at kigge indad, at lade sig nære af det, man allerede har, og det, der skabes indenfor gruppen, skal brydes. Tabuer er i den forbindelse nogle af de stærkeste tiltag, vi har. Incest-og kannibalismetabuerne tilskynder til og nødvendiggør udveksling. Vi er ikke nok i os selv, synes disse universelle tabuer at hviske eller banke ind i os. Du skal vende blikket udad, du skal konfrontere og konfronteres af det, der ikke er dig. Det er det, denne artikel handler om: Med hadza, en gruppe jæger-samlere i Nordtanzania, som case, vil vi se på tabuer, deling af kød og det at møde sin "signifikante anden" for at dele sig selv. Vi lader ideen om incest ligge for nu, men holder fast i kannibalismen og i kødet. Artiklen vil handle om kød som jagtbytte, kød som spise, kød som genstand for deling (sharing), kød som relateret til tabuer og kød med sjæl. Og på en eller anden måde vil det handle om en gruppes aktive modværge mod kannibalisme, at kollektivet kan se sig selv i øjnene og en vedvarende kamp for samfundets fortsatte genskabelse.

Research has differentiated the distinctive characteristics of males' and females' utilization of taboo expressions in oral discourse; this demarcation, however, has rarely been accompanied with underlying factors instigating such discrepancies. Thus, the purpose of this study was twofold; at the outset, the researchers aimed at evidentially confirming or disconfirming previous research outcomes, that is to see whether there exist such differences; secondly, to fill the lacuna in the related literature regarding factors influencing such gender-based differences in the employment of taboo expressions. To address the aforementioned purposes, an emic orientation was opted to gain an ethnographical appreciation of the issues under question. To this end, 20 B.A, M.A, and Ph.D. students with different socioeconomic and cultural backdrops were semi-structurally interviewed. Although some previous research renders the gender-based differences in the use of taboo words as non-existent, the results of the current research favor the other end of the spectrum. However, with regard to factors engendering such differences, the results of the study foregrounded some issues to which if paid due heed, it would add to our understanding of the matter.

Terence McKenna argued that sovereignty over one’s consciousness is the next great civil rights struggle after sexism, racism, and homophobia. “Coming out” about one’s psychedelic identity, interests, and/or experiences is an important part of redefining the public perception of psychedelics and of those who choose to experience their effects. Even non-using “allies” (comparable to LGBTQ allies) can join the conversation in supportive roles. In light of the shifting legal status of psychoactive plants and chemicals, what might it mean to identify as psychedelic in a post-prohibition world?

Designing for women's healthcare remains an underexplored area of HCI, particularly outside informational systems for maternal health. Drawing on a case study of a body disruption-urinary incontinence in women-we illustrate the experience of women's health both from the perspective of the patient and the therapist. We show how knowledge, esteem and agency play crucial roles in remedial women's care practices, as well as preventative. In describing these challenges we deliberate on possible futures of women's health that take advantage of the many advances in design and technology from across the spectrum of HCI research. We show how with some care and courage HCI has the potential to transform women's experience within this setting.

In my article I study two Anglophone feature films, Jeppe Rønde's Bridgend (2015) and Susan Bier's Bird Box (2018), from the viewpoints offered by visual cultural studies and the theoretical domains of taboo and biopower. Both systems of control respond to risks and dangers to society, taboo through ideas of contagion and biopower through normative, especially medical discourses by authorized instances of knowledge production. They are reflected also in the audiovisual popular culture seeking to make sense of suicide through entertaining and artistic means. The two films I study present suicide as a contagion that has supernatural (Bird Box) and social origins (Bridgend), and as a force of nature that threatens individuals from the outside yet also from within as madness (Bird Box), or as irrationality or vulnerability of youth (Bridgend). By analyzing suicide's representation in both films, I discuss the ways western thinking trying to fathom voluntary death reflects senses of danger attached to suicide under taboo and biopower and in response to the humane emotions of love and fear of loss. I also discuss how taboo and biopower can be seen to generate this threat to individual lives by their suppression of living and dying.

Tainted Love is the first critical anthology to offer extended analysis of the representation of sexual perversities on screen. Interrogating the recent shift towards the mainstream in the cinematic representation of previously marginalised sexual practices, it challenges the discourses and debates around sexual taboo, moral panics, degeneracy, deviance and disease, which present those who enact such sexualities as modern folk devils.
This timely collection brings together leading scholars who draw on a variety of critical approaches including adaptation, performance, cultural studies, queer theory, feminism and philosophy to examine screen representations of controversial sexualities from the weird and wonderful to the debased and debauched.

Chapters explore provocative performances of hysteria and sexual obsession, ‘everyday’ perversion in neoliberal culture, the radical potential of sadomasochism, teenage sexuality in the films of Larry Clark, intergenerational sex and incestuous relations in French cinema, sexual obsession in gay cinema, the straightness of necrophilia, the presentation of the paedophile, Swedish Erotica’s ‘good sex’ and imaging and re-imagining the Marquis de Sade from film to slash fiction. In order to move past binary distinctions of good and bad, normal and abnormal, moral and immoral, Tainted Love seeks to critically interrogate perverse sexualities and sexual perversities on screen.

In the light of these developments, it can be useful to go back to the understanding, meaning, and analytical function of taboos. In this introduction, we will give a short summary of how to tackle the concept of ‘taboo‘ in an analytical way and how to relate it to transgression. In a second step, we will outline a programmatic approach to taboo and how to apply it in a functional perspective for the analysis of contemporary society, which is increasingly marked by debates on migration, integration policies and negotiations revolving around diversity and identity. In a final step, we will present an overview of the individual contributions.

Contemporary critique of trope of sexual liberation in African literature is mostly replete with analysis of prostitution narratives, giving rise to an assumption and monolithic view of what sexual freedom or self-determination could mean. Such narratives, however, often do not yield arguments related to the critical capital of the salacious, since prostitution primarily involves transactional sex and not necessarily an inordinate sexual affair. This study privileges a generic divergence whereby analysis is hinged on the literary appreciation of salaciousness. Abubakar Adam Ibrahim's Season of Crimson Blossoms departs from prostitution plot to a pornographic depiction of sexual obscenity: the venereal affair between Binta Zubairu, a 55 year old widow and grandmother, and Hassan Reza, a 25 year old street gang leader. The study investigates the existential tragedy of sexual freedom by examining the extent to which sexual relationship that is considered a taboo in a given social milieu is a recipe for self-realisation. Using a feminist view of existentialism, I demonstrate how the individual will to rise above the conventional, by escaping from being a sexually deprived human to becoming one who responds to the body's need for unbridled sexual pleasure, constitutes George Lukács and Arthur Miller's ideas of modern tragedy.

I argue that cultural anthropology can explain two persistent riddles of American criminal justice: (1) Why do we have mass incarceration when mass incarceration is ineffective and socially destructive? (2) Why do we have victimless crimes when criminal law is ostensibly based on the utilitarian harm principle?

One answer is found in the anthropological “survivals” known as “uncleanness” and “taboos.” These visceral, often subconscious, feelings function to preserve order, the status quo, and class distinctions. Despite the gains made in civil rights, nonwhites and the underclass remain “the other,” and they threaten to “contaminate” the majority population. Crime itself, as a threat to social stability, has become charged with a powerful ability to attract and repel. Crime and criminals are described using terms for dirt and feces. The majority culture’s response to crime (which is linked with its unconscious response to the lower class and minorities) is to expel such pollution into sealed containers called prisons. The ritualism of civic religion completes the purification process.

Deeply felt taboos also persist concerning sex and drugs. While marijuana possession and use harms no one but the user, marijuana is historically taboo on account of its association with minorities and radicals. Incest is criminalized and sex with minors is hyper-punished because they violate deeply felt sexual taboos.

I argue that one promising solution is to help people develop a stronger taboo (through education) that can cancel out the dehumanizing taboos toward criminals (just as the taboo against homophobia has supplanted the taboo against homosexuality). We will continue to overpunish until hyper-punishment itself becomes repulsive.

This paper addresses the issue of the textual representation of taboo-related personal and social identities of a woman and related tensions and techniques. While considering the broader Iranian cultural and literary context, it focuses on a more detailed analysis of three acclaimed novels written by women: "Del-e fulād" ("Heart of Steel") by Moniru Ravānipur, "Čerāqhā rā man xāmuš mikonam" ('I’ll get the Lights') by Zoyā Pirzād and "Parande-ye man" ('My Bird') by Faribā Vafi. The choice is based on the fact that similar narration strategies have been applied in these texts that successfully reflect the tension between the inner and social selves of the characters. The purpose of the paper is to examine the impact of Iranian cultural traditions and classical literary patterns on modern writers' works. Despite the interest in the representation of women in contemporary Iranian literature, few studies have considered it a matter of structural literary analysis especially in comparison with older examples of domestic literary tradition. Thus, this work makes a significant contribution to the field.

Artykuł podejmuje kwestię tekstowej reprezentacji i literackich technik przedstawiania napięć towarzyszących kształtowaniu się tożsamości kobiecych (indywidualnych czy grupowych) w kontekście ról płciowych obwarowanych tabu. Sytuując rozważania na szerokim tle kultury irańskiej, autorka czyni głównym przedmiotem analizy trzy uznane powieści autorstwa kobiet: „Del-e fulād” (Serce ze stali) Moniru Ravānipur, „Čerāqhā rā man xāmuš mikonam” (Ja wyłączę światła) Zoyi Pirzād oraz „Parande-ye man” (Mój ptak) Fariby Vafi. Wybór wynika z faktu, że we wszystkich tych tekstach zastosowanie podobnych strategii narracyjnych pozwoliło na odbicie napięć pomiędzy wewnętrznym i społecznym „ja” bohaterek.
Celem artykułu jest także zbadanie wpływu irańskich tradycji kulturowych i klasycznych ścieżek narracyjnych na twórczość współczesnych autorek. Pomimo zainteresowania tematem kobiet we współczesnej literaturze irańskiej, jak dotąd niewiele uwagi poświęcono analizie struktur i technik obrazowania postaci kobiecych, zwłaszcza w kontekście porównania ze starszymi przykładami rodzimej tradycji literackiej. Zatem niniejszy tekst stanowi istotny wkład.

This paper investigates the relationship between self-esteem, body-image and sexual desire within gay men. It looks at the gay male body as a site of ‘performativity’, the body ‘citationality’ quoting the ‘norms’ of gay society in order not to be labelled ‘other.’ If you do not fit the ‘ideal’ of what a gay male should look like this can lead gay men to transgress taboos to achieve their idealised body desires, a trans(a)gression against the self through the practicing of unsafe sex to obtain possession of an ideal body.

How are perceptions of morality and disgust regarding meat consumption related to each other? Which factor is more salient in determining one's willingness to eat the meat of a specific animal?  How do these answers vary across religious groups? This study investigates the ways that concepts like morality and disgust are related to food preferences and hopes to shed light on the mechanisms that enforce culturally sanctioned food taboos. The study compares 4 groups of people in the U.S.: Christians (n = 39), Hindus (n = 29), Jews (n = 23), and non-religious people (n = 63).  A total of 154 participants were given surveys in which they rated their feelings about eating various animals. Data from Christian and non-religious groups exhibited similar patterns such as a high likelihood of eating a given animal when starving, while results from Jews and Hindus were consistent with their religion's respective food taboos. Despite these differences, morality and disgust are strongly correlated with one another in almost all instances. Moreover, morality and disgust are almost equally important considerations when determining willingness to eat when starving.

What are the quintessential linguistic features of translations in African writing? This is the question we attempt to answer in this paper. We undertake this task because there are evidences that African writing contains lots of translations and these bilingual/hybrid texts are very often discussed from a more political/ideological/birds-eye perspective. Since translation is a linguistic phenomenon, it is necessary that they are analyzed using linguistic approaches. We analyzed the translation of proverbs from the source language (Ewe) into the target language (English) in Mawuli Adzei’s novel
Taboo. We used the Vinay and Darbelnet’s Model in translation theory for the study. Our findings show some linguistic features and the stylistic processes of translations evident in this novel.

The focus of action in the East Anglian Croxton Play of the Sacrament is a consecrated communion wafer, the host. Aristorius, a Christian merchant, steals a consecrated host from a church. He sells it to a group of Jewish merchants (who instigated the theft) as they wish to use the host to disprove the dogma of transubstantiation. The Jewish characters subject the host to several tests which parallel the Passion in various ways. In the process, one of the Jewish characters (Jonathas) is injured. A vision of the Christ-child appears and addresses them. They repent their sins and Jonathas is miraculously healed. As a result, they convert to Christianity. Aristorius confesses his sacrilegious theft and the host is returned to its rightful place in the local church: a happy ending for all, in medieval Christian terms.
This article argues that in the Croxton Play of the Sacrament, the Christian playwright enacts a ritual of transgression (and thus of impurity) that neutralises the threat of religious heterodoxy. Making use of a dramatic representation of imaginary Jewish characters, the playwright ponders the nature of the doctrine of transubstantiation, and possible Christian doubts and anxieties concerning it at a safe remove. The Christian thus uses a representation of a Jewish Other to consider the divine Other, thereby crossing social and spiritual boundaries, while Christ may also be perceived as reaching out to the human Other by transgressing limits.

Death and Dying: Lifting of Taboos Illustrated through Contemporary Slovak Prose

Paradoxically, eros and thanatos – historically the most universal subjects of literature – conceal a considerable taboo: the death of a loved one. What tends to be tabooed is not death in the sense of a particular absolute event; it is thinking about death in the manner of coming to terms with another’s death, fear of death, anxiety about death, or wishing to overcome death. The attitude towards death changes over time at both the societal and individual levels. In present-day western society, it is one of the most tabooed social subjects. This article seeks to demonstrate the genuine and direct nature of literature, its capacity to change our perception of dying, with examples from contemporary prose by two Slovak authors. In his postmodern novella Kôň na poschodí, slepec vo Vrábľoch (A Horse Upstairs, A Blind Man in Vráble, 1989), Pavel Vilikovský depicts the protagonist’s fear of losing his connectedness as a result of his mother’s death. The novel Happyendy (Happy Endings, 2005) by Jaroslava Blažková is a personal epistolary account based on taking leave from her dying husband. In both cases, being faced with death implies some time to look into oneself, a certain degree of self-exploration, be this through writing, recollections, or dealing with the mother-son relationship. The relative frequency of such themes in contemporary prose testifies to the topicality and authenticity of such literature, no longer confined to itself, addressing topics that are socially significant but largely not spoken about. The gradual lifting of taboos about dying as featured in those literary texts points to the power of literature to shape and alter both the individual and social reality.
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Schmidt Éva munkásságára – és lényére – emlékezve az első, ami eszünkbe jut, a medve, az obi-ugor medvekultusz. A medvével kapcsolatos obi-ugor folklórból, rítusokból és hitvilágra vonatkozó adatokból Schmidt Éva által leszűrt vallási koncepció olyan kristálytiszta
és koherens, hogy inkább tényként, mint tudományos koncepcióként érzékelhető. Megértése önmagában komoly szellemi kihívás, újragondolására pedig aligha vállalkozhat az, aki nála kevesebb adatot ismer – nála többet pedig nem ismer senki. Írásomban is alapelemként használom fel Schmidt Évának az obi-ugor világképről készített modelljét, ehhez próbálom viszonyítani a tisztasággal kapcsolatos adatokat és problémákat. Tanulmányom az állatokra vonatkozó tiltásokon keresztül vizsgálja a tisztaság fogalmát. A ’tiszta’ jelentése összeér a ’tiltott, szent’ fogalmával, ami az állatvilággal való kapcsolatban központi kategória. Míg azonban bizonyos tiltások egyértelműen vonatkoznak egyes állatokra, feltételezve, hogy azok ’tiszta, tiltott, szent’ minőségűek, hiszen ennek megőrzése tűnik a tiltások céljának, addig állatok tisztátalanságára alig akad példa, kérdés
tehát, hogy „mihez képest” ’tiszta, tiltott, szent’ egy állat. Új terepadataim e kérdést a végletekig feszítik, ugyanis a hanti kultúrából ismert, nőiséggel kapcsolatos tisztátalanság –amely női eredete miatt egyértelműen az emberi világhoz kötött – megjelenik egy állatfaj, a
menyhal tulajdonságai között is, eleve tisztátalannak tekintve e fajt. Létezhet-e tehát női jellegű, emberi eredetű tisztátalanság a nem-emberi világban?

With the unbridled use of the Internet and the social media, Westerners would think that sexual knowledge is common and the norm among people in every society. However, to discuss sex in some African cultures can be likened with stealing from the Pope or dancing naked in the church. In African societies, Sex is between a married couple and sacred. Sex is not discussed casually. Africans believe that decent families and respectable people will not discuss sex or sexual acts. Discussion about sex is interpreted as a sign of poor upbringing, promiscuity and irresponsibility. During childhood, older children and peers serve as experts about childhood sexual curiosity and questions. Nowadays, with the advent of social media and the availability of technology, sexual information is readily learned.

Interlingual subtitling was singled out for this research, as it is the common mode used to translate English films intended for an Arabic audience in most Arab T.V channels. However, this form of audiovisual translation is often prone to many constraints, and subtitling taboos is a case in point. The research aims to raise awareness about the special use of some strategies and showcase the ensuing changes, omissions and errors in the target language. This article looks into the translation strategies of taboo words, be them lexemes and/or expressions about death, sex, cursing, religion or calling names. Methodology-wise, 214 English-Arabic pairs of taboo words were collected from five popular Arab T.V channels and 23 American and British films were assessed. The data was coded according to Gottlieb's subtitling strategies (1992) and both quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted. The quantitative results showed four specific recurrent strategies during the subtitling process to cope with rendering taboo words. The qualitative analysis, however, revealed other lexico-semantic devices such as euphemism, disphemism and general words; translation techniques namely literal translation, partial rendering and inaccurate equivalence, along with other subtitling technical schemes. The research contributes to fill some gaps in the field of film subtitling from English into Arabic and insists on the importance of applying the adequate strategies when conveying taboos in the target language.

The article is focused on two female taboos linked with menstruation and pregnancy existing among the contemporary
members of the Lacandon community. Despite the references about one female taboo associated with different restrictions
for women (sacred places, participation in rituals and other specific activities), in this research we analyse two categories of
reasons for these taboos. The first one related to menstruation takes into account the spiritual essence of blood and the necessity
of keeping it under control during rituals. Menstruation in this case represents an outflow of spiritual powers that cannot be
controlled, with possible risks for the community. In the case of pregnancy, the reason for it being a taboo is different because it
concerns the lack of blood. In this sense, the presented theory is based on the concepts of nagualism, indicating that the existence
of two souls/beings in one body presupposes magic power and healing possibilities with a high risk of magic attacks. The evidence
obtained during long-term fieldwork clarify that the so-called female taboo is composed of two different reasons. It is not
the same phenomenon because the expectations, as well as the consequences, are different. To conclude, a phenomenon formally
comparable with other similar phenomenon from the Old World could possibly have different origins.

This essay considers taboos that have developed in and around Holocaust literature, focussing on controversial, fictional responses to the Holocaust, with a particular emphasis on the representation of perpetrators. All of the writers discussed draw on the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud, and this essay takes Freud’s reading of social taboos as a model for interpreting transgressive forms of historical representation and cultural practice, arguing that the proscription of certain forms of Holocaust representation constitutes an attempt to foreclose responses to the genocide that are particularly difficult to articulate or deal with, such as the ‘fascination of Fascism’, the ordinariness of perpetrator identities, and ambivalent attitudes towards the dead. It makes a case for the value of novels and poems which engage with truths about our relationship with history that are never straightforwardly empirical, arguing that they are fundamental to what the Germans term ‘working through’ or ‘dealing with’ (Vergangenheitsbewältigung) the knowledge and cultural legacy of the Holocaust.

Debtera are Ethiopian Orthodox ritual specialists known for their advanced religious education, as well as for engaging in illicit magic. This article traces how their secret magical knowledge and practices emerge from the official Orthodox tradition. Yet, while drawing on this tradition, the debtera’s ritual repertoire also transgresses some of its central proscriptions. Transgression, in this context, does not abolish the boundaries it violates, but reinstates their legitimacy. This dynamic prompts debtera to engage in imaginative ethical reassessments of the unstable relationship between illicit knowledge and official tenets. Through their transgressive performances, debtera enable their clients to secretly address and actualise sinful desires that otherwise remain unacknowledged or are suppressed by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. By examining this ritual management of covert desires, I conclude that the study of debtera’s secrecy illuminates fundamental complexities and contradictions in Ethiopian Orthodox sociality which operate beneath the surface of public moral discourse.

The aim of this study was to discover the prevailing strategies of translating taboos in the 1390s/~2010s. To this end, four Persian translations of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, published in the mentioned decade, were investigated. However, to make a comparison between strategies of translating taboo words and expressions in the 1390s/~2010s and the pre-Islamic Revolution era, the only translation of the novel published before the Islamic Revolution was also examined. This study adopted a mixed theoretical framework, one to detect the taboo items and the other to analyse the collected taboos with respect to the translation strategies. To carry out the research, first, the taboo items of the source text were extracted. Then the 124 taboos extracted from the source text were compared to their Persian counterparts with respect to translation strategies. Findings of the study showed great diversity regarding the adopted strategies, possibly highlighting the role of translators’ personal decisions, rather than norm-based decisions, in translating taboo items.

Bigdeloo, Milad (2022). Translating Taboo Language in the 1390s: The Case of The Catcher in the Rye. Translation Studies Quarterly, 19(76), 75–90. https://dorl.org/dor/20.1001.1.17350212.1400.19.4.8.6

In this course we seek to co-explore the cultural byways of food, and situate food at center of many core aspects of being human. Thus we will consider food in light of practicing things such as gender, class, labour, nation, state, and industry.