ABSTRACT
Mary Douglas has had a vast impact both on academic research–there have been over 50,000 journal articles citing her–and broader public debate. Douglas's academic discipline, anthropology, changed markedly during her career–partly as a result of her influence. At the start of her career, she was considered at the discipline's margins, but now she is considered one of the most important twentieth-century anthropologists. The influence of Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo–not only on understanding questions of pollution and dirt, but also on the worlds of Old Testament scholarship and African anthropology–is so vast as to be virtually incalculable. Purity and Danger is also a rich source of ideas and hypotheses, many not yet given adequate attention. Areas of her work that have been so far overlooked include exploring with greater nuance how the body relates, through ritual, to broader society and its challenges.
