ABSTRACT
Disgust is a peculiar beast. It refuses to present itself as a reliable object of study. It cannot be observed from a safe distance. It will not be met on your own terms. Instead, disgust revolts you in an encounter that almost always feels like an attack. Sianne Ngai observes that this “ugly feeling par excellence” is no vague, amorphous affect, but rather one characterized by the “vehement rejection or exclusion of its object.”1 In its emphasis on exclusion, Ngai’s discussion of disgust recalls Julia Kristeva’s abject. Disgust emerges as the affective response to an encounter with the abject. The connection between disgust and the abject does not end there. As with the abject, there is no universal object of disgust, for that affect depends on a host of variables that include cultural norms, ideological structures, and personal preferences.
