Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin explored carnival and laughter culture in the stagnant years of the late Soviet Union and called such themes “material-bodily bottoms.” Half a century later, anthropologists in St Petersburg called a two-day conference about excrement in culture “Anthropopology: Brown Studies and the Unclean Turn.” The students’ bold endeavour quickly turned from a unique academic event into a prime example of internal and external ideological censorship. And while the bosses were trying to “keep a low profile” for the event, the hype around the “semiotics of shit” was already fuelled by millions of dollars of Dvacha- and MDK-level publics.
“I have every right to say to the organisers that the theme of your conference is shit,” was how Mikhail Lurie, an associate professor at the Department of Anthropology of the European University in St. Petersburg, who previously headed this department, began his report “Notes on the Semiotics of Shit”.
Indeed, for the first time in history, a conference on excrement in culture was held ata university in St. Petersburg, and in Russia in general . It lasted two full days and brought together the whole colour of researchers of sewage from the leading universities of the two capitals.
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In world history, the pioneers in the presentation of the best results of the study of such a vital topic were British scientists (even here they are), but the organisers of the Russian event believe that they managed to dig much deeper, and the topic 💩 was revealed a little more than completely. Anthropologists really managed to gather the cream of the crop in analysing the material presented. Judge for yourself.
Here are just a few, selected by sophisticated observers, of the Brown Studies highlights:
– the toilet theme in post-war Soviet cartoons;
– defecation practices at Arctic polar stations in the early twentieth century;
– “diarrhoea conspiracy” in esoteric internet communities;
– typology and design of museum toilets;
– the use of artificial intelligence to create neuro-cavers for the song “Shovnovoz”;
– excrement in Dutch paintings and engravings of the 17th century;
– phenomenology of high-tech Japanese toilets.
The second peculiarity of the Russian conference (compared to the complete openness to the bodily nether regions of British academics) was its genuine elitism and fidelity to the late Soviet tradition of privacy. In the 1960s and 1980s, the most progressive humanities and socio-economic academic events were held either by point-by-point invitation or under the guise of distracting or obscure titles, so as not to attract the attention of the censors and the ‘First Department’. In 2024, the Unholy Turn might not have happened. But anthropologists understand human nature well, especially the nature of those who, by duty or by the will of their hearts, keep their noses in the wind and fly like flies to any non-covenantal topics.
However, it passed! Numerous do-gooders and whistle-blowers checking the rubbish bins (in addition to the website and social networks) of the European University found out about the conference when everything, including the ink in the notebooks of selected correspondents, had already dried up. It should be recalled that the European University is under constant oppression from a variety of inspection bodies like no other university in Russia. T-invariant has reported on this many times (for example, here, here and here).
However, the taboo topic quickly made the conference legendary. So legendary, in fact, that the Dvach and MDK publics wrote about it in detail . Was there any other scientific conference in the history of scientific Russia to which these giants of hype would have responded? The reaction followed immediately. Soon the event page on the university’s website ceased to be public, and the conference’s Telegram channel (loved by readers) was deleted. The organisers and authors of the reports refused to discuss their success with journalists, even anonymously, and the previously promised hours-long video recording was never published and will apparently remain forever in the St. Petersburg annals, from which there is no extradition. The city that gave Russia and the world several revolutions, and a few years earlier returned the experience of going to conferences-apartment meetings (strictly by personal invitation) to inquisitive citizens , may soon put into circulation video from conferences on VHS, which true intellectuals will take at night to watch and rewrite for themselves.
Previously, the link in this screenshot led to the conference’s Telegram channel, but it has now been removed
“If you will, it was such a science carnival.”
However, in any even the most desperate situation, if one takes one’s time (and doctors forbid rushing into it!), exertion will be rewarded. T-invariant correspondent managed to get a comment from one of the speakers:
– It was probably intended by the organisers that this would be a completely serious conference! yes, there is a certain challenge to the usual framework in the topic. None of the scientists have specifically dealt with these matters, and some of the papers look like a bit of a parody. It’s hard to distinguish serious conclusions from humorous ones. It was such a scientific carnival, if you will. That people had such a strong reaction is a perfectly natural thing. Moreover, some people perceived the conference as something provocative and challenging, but, by the way, this is an existing field of research.
Bakhtin called such topics “material-bodily bottom,” and their discussion will cause laughter among children and anthropologists alike. If you say the word “pop” to a child, he will laugh. As you can see, adults are not much different in this respect. At the same time, the same child takes his own butt as seriously as possible, because it is a part of his body, which can be in different states, sick, for example. But an abstract butt as a cultural phenomenon will always cause laughter.
In terms of content, these were the most common presentations in the humanities and beyond. Conferences about odours, insects, death, anything may seem more serious, though we laugh at them no less: there are always amazing materials, especially when it comes to folklore, literature, field research. The screening of listeners was also no different: if someone is not interested, he will not listen or speak.
It cannot be said that outside this conference there are specialists who deal only with excrement in culture. But inevitably some material was at hand, put aside, encountered in literature or observations. And here is a great occasion to form it into a text and share it with colleagues. This is also a common story: you may not be engaged in the topic of the conference, but a suitable story on this topic is lying somewhere. In general, for me it was no different from other interdisciplinary conferences.
The only difference is that many people took it as a joke and it was interesting to watch. It’s a whole scientific conference about poop, an event! Some people rejoiced on social networks, saying it was great that such a thing had been done, others were outraged. It was, it must be said, a rather expected story. If we are doing unbiased science, we need to be prepared for the broader cultural framework and topics that can cause such a resonance and reaction.
Freegans, night pots, Soviet cartoons.
T-invariant correspondent compiled his TOP list of reports. All those who passed the “Standing at the Upper Lars” were particularly moved by the story of Glikeriy Ulunov from EUSPb and the National Research University Higher School of Economics about the freegans (who, let us remind you, are presented by Russian propaganda as the sad future of emigrants in the South Caucasus) in terms of the practices of searching for food and their protest against consumer society.
Another hit was the report on night pots. Ekaterina Blatova (EUSPb) spoke about how a person has an intimate space. If in Europe at the beginning of the 18th century one could find public toilets, a night vase already speaks about the privacy of its owner. And especially of the owner, so through night pots we can talk about female sexuality through the eyes of men of that time. The experience of living in the permafrost zone, where instead of running water, the family and the scientist living in it used a bucket, was not idle.
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Much closer than it seems, Soviet post-war cartoons, which were examined in her report by Anna Shevtsova (MPGU). In them the toilet theme was also present, but either as a sign of childhood, or as a detail of the carelessness of Soviet builders who put the bathroom upright, or as a sketch of Soviet life with the eternal queue for the lavatory. But no more than that. Interestingly, in Soviet cartoons, only abortion or teenage pregnancy could rival the subject of the toilet in terms of taboo. In part, this taboo has remained in the post-Soviet space. No close-ups of faeces, like in Takeshi Kitano’s film “Did You Get Anyone?” will be shown. And high-tech toilets, like in Japan, will seem like a joke. And this, by the way, is a whole culture of chindogu, which was described by Mikhail Fedorchenko, a graduate of the Stasis CPF postgraduate programme of the EUSPB, as “rubbish” inventions that are not intended for profit, but are simply funny things.
In practical terms, the difference in cultures has manifested itself in covid time. Rectal swab is much more accurate than PCR, but in Europe, and in Russia as well, this method did not take root. But museum toilets have taken root as part of the exposition: strangely enough, most of the reviews of museums are based on visits to the lavatories, and an ill-conceived or unkempt toilet will leave the worst memories. So some museums have already made them not only interesting, where visitors are offered to leave a drawing on the wall as a memory or go on a quest by QR code, but also informative. For example, to tell about the history of the development of the lavatory or to stylise it as a medieval one. Why not?
And what if we talk about ecology and animal exploitation through the theme of excrement? Easy. The anthropologist Maria Pirogovskaya’s report told the story of the world’s most expensive coffee. These are the beans digested by the palm civet, or musang, for the sake of which the animals are kept on a special diet. It is debatable what to preserve, the plantations and unique product or the animal. And other bodily secretions that usually elicit an “ew” reaction can be hunted, such as towels and personal items with traces of celebrity sweat or mumijo. Finally, bodily secretions are pure magic! Severed hair, fingernails, blood – all of these have been and are being used for conspiracies.
Speaking of conspiracies. If you think “diarrhoea conspiracy” is a well-known meme about diarrhoea rays, no. These are real spells in many esoteric traditions, which are meant to humiliate the victim (again, it’s a shameful and taboo disease) and frighten her. Yes and the faeces themselves can be used for spoiling even nowadays. Yulia Kovyrshina (EUSPb) has been observing forums and groups where people discuss the details of such practices for a long time.
The association of faeces with something unclean may cause rejection in some people. One of the presentations was devoted to the problem, which is urgent for many dog owners, of pets eating other people’s faeces (this is also the reason why dogs have become unclean animals in many cultures). In Russian, the word “shit” has also acquired a motive of destruction and a way of talking about the forbidden. “Others” can be referred to with words related to faeces, as seen in the report on the Marquis de Sade, when hate speech is expressed through toilet themes.
The report by Mikhail Alekseevsky from the Centre for Urban Anthropology of KB Strelka on covers of the song “Shit Carrier”, written back in 1996, provoked an expectedly strong reaction. The uniqueness of this song is that it doesn’t contain any mate and fits almost any motif. So Internet users attracted the full power of modern technology and made famous performers sing, put the words on the screensavers of TV series and even mystified the concert of Vysotsky, who allegedly performed this song in 1969. The video sequence is also usually generated by a neural network, so posthuman folklore where our participation is minimal already exists. There are literally thousands of such videos on YouTube.
The outcome of the first conference is such that it is now time to prepare for the next one. The toilet topic is limitless, so you now know who you can throw your theses at.
Text: Anna Grebennikova
Анна Гребенникова 28.11.2024