Episode 128 – Cleanliness

How often should you shower to remain ‘clean’? How many times can you re-wear your jeans before they are considered ‘dirty’? In episode 128 of Overthink, Ellie and David take a look at cleanliness. They get into how humans have turned cleanliness into an art, and maybe even an obsession. Why are we so bothered by dirt? What is dirt, anyways? How are notions of dirtiness and cleanliness even into our symbolic systems, including language and religion? And what is up with TikTok’s obsession with the Clean Girl Aesthetic? As they tackle these questions, your hosts also explore the historical weaponisation of the concept of cleanliness against marginalised groups, such as queer people and people of color. In the bonus, Ellie and David discuss cleanliness as a social construct, the link between it and isolation, and Michel Serres’s ‘excremental theory’ of private property.

Works Discussed:
Bruce Bagemihl, Biological Exuberance
Dana Berthold, “Tidy Whiteness: A Genealogy of Race, Purity, and Hygiene”
L’Oreal Blackett, “In The “Hygiene Olympics” Black Folks Always Win — But Aren’t We Tired?”
Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger
Virginia Smith, Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity