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A grimy looking toilet in an abandoned building with debris strewn on the ground
Illustration with a butterfly, cloud-like imagery, orange sun, and "The Philosopher’s Zone" alongside ABC branding.

Program: Purity, filth and 'promiscuous defecators': why we're weird about poo

Source:ABC Radio NationalProgram:The Philosopher's Zone

Fri 5 Jun 2026 at 9:00am

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ABC Radio National
ABC Radio National

Presented by

David Rutledge
David Rutledge

Why are we so repelled yet fascinated by bodily waste? Today we're talking purity, pollution, colonial sanitation regimes, medicine and public health, and how they've been shaped by our deeply ambivalent attitudes to the stuff we all produce (ideally) every day, but rarely think about deeply.

Guest: Warwick Anderson, Janet Dora Hine Professor of Politics, Governance and Ethics in the Discipline of Anthropology and the Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney

Producer: David Rutledge

Spectacles of Waste by Warwick Anderson (Polity Press 2024)

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(Pexels / Franco Garcia)

Illustration with a butterfly, cloud-like imagery, orange sun, and "The Philosopher’s Zone" alongside ABC branding.
Program:More from The Philosopher's Zone
Philosophy, Public Health, Recycling and Waste Management
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