BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Purity &\; Impurity Across Anthropology\, Psychology &\; Rel igious Studies: Contaminating Disciplines - Speaker to be confirmed DTSTART:20140520T080000Z DTEND:20140520T170000Z UID:TALK50487@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:Speaker to be confirmed DESCRIPTION:http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/25030\nPurity and Danger\, published in 1966 by Mary Douglas\, was judged by the Times Literary Suppl ement to be among the 'hundred books which have most influenced Western pu blic discourse since the Second World War'. This text contested the common presumption that purity and impurity discourses are confined merely to ‘primitive’ or ‘superstitious’ cultures and societies\, instead ar guing that such themes. play an important boundary-drawing role in all hum an societies. In the wake of Douglas’s contribution\, research into ques tions of purity and impurity has blossomed in the fields of psychology\, a nthropology and religious studies. However\, further testing of Douglas’ particular claims has led to the now widely-held conclusion that her ‘t hesis does not service the analytical needs of contemporary social inquiry ’ and that new approaches to the question of purity are needed. We main tain that a key hindrance to further progress has been the relative lack o f interdisciplinary engagement in relation to this topic. Even the main sc holar to have attempted this integration\, Julia Kristeva\, has noted that ‘my investigation... picks up on a certain vacuum’.\n\nAccordingly\, in addressing the vacuum of interdisciplinary work noted by Kristeva\, the central approach of the conference is to promote cross-disciplinary schol arly exploration and conversation on purity\, impurity\, and disgust. We a im to do so by bringing together scholars contributing to the fields of an thropology\, psychology\, and religious studies. Questions of purity have played a significant role in these disciplines in recent years\, but each discipline\, in accord with its dominant methodology\, has taken a differe nt approach to such questions. Thus\, psychology asks: what can we learn about purity by studying the actions and reactions of individuals in parti cular scenarios? Are certain disgust reactions or moral and religious judg ments of impurity triggered by certain primes\, actions\, or stimuli? Are there other stimuli that can lessen reactions of disgust? Conversely\, ant hropology\, rather than studying individual reactions\, tends to focus the ways in social and cultural structures may enact or reinforce structures of purity or impurity. What can the study of existing communal frameworks teach us about the ways in which human approaches to purity and impurity m anifest themselves? Religious studies approaches\, by contrast\, tend to f ocus on textual and historical resources: how have themes of purity and im purity been presented in sacred texts and theological reflection\, and wha t can these intellectual productions teach us about various patterns of hu man purity structures? LOCATION:Jesus College\, Upper Hall END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR