2020

Heinämaa, Sara

Disgust is usually characterized as a strong negative emotion, more concretely as an aversion accompanied by intense, even violent, bodily reactions. The bodily aspects of disgust are taken to include nose wrinkling, retraction of the upper lip, gaping, convulsions, gagging and nausea. Many theorists contend that such bodily tendencies are universally shared by all humans. Many theorists agree with Nussbaum in criticizing disgust as a profoundly harmful emotion. Whereas shame and guilt are taken to have potentially constructive social implications, disgust is seen as an essentially destructive feeling. Many contemporary discussions of disgust build on Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection as developed in Powers of Horror and related works. On psychoanalytical and semiotic grounds, Kristeva argues that abjection is always ambivalent, including opposite values or valences.