Introduction／

演講一

Pigs and human bodies: a short history of waste in early China

豬隻與人體：中國古代肥料簡史

Early Chinese texts discuss diet, regimens for nourishing the body and methods to cultivate its inner purity. These sources have less to say about the body’s effluvia and the organic waste shed and excreted by human and non-human animals. In this workshop we will examine references to excreta and excretion in early China. We are interested in the discourse on what gets “discarded”. We will explore how excreta were deemed noxious yet also beneficial. The process of excretion made the body vulnerable to external influences such as demonic illness, yet fecal matter itself also had medicinal healing powers. In agriculture, waste and human nightsoil that accumulated in the domestic space were used to fertilize crops and infuse life into seeds, fields, and public productivity. We will examine textual and archaeological evidence and trace excretory experience and the treatment of waste through its cycle from defecation to regeneration.

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