Recognizing Secular Defilement: Douglas,Durkheim and Housework

Mary Douglas is generally regarded as a faithful disciple of Émile Durkheim. Yet her classic work Purity and Danger ([1966] 2002. London: Routledge) is best understood as premised upon a fundamental disagreement with Durkheim, who she accused of conflating purity with “the sacred” and impurity with “the profane”. Key to this disagreement was the theoretical status of the “busy scrubbings” of everyday housework. This disagreement has had a substantial legacy since, in turning her attention to purity and impurity in their specificity, Douglas bequeathed anthropology and sociology a theory of purity and impurity that has remained an important, perhaps even dominant, paradigm. This paradigm has been identified as an exemplar of synchronic analysis. Yet this paradigm itself is the product of a specific historical and intellectual context, little recognized today. Attending to this context holds open possibilities, which have otherwise tended to be neglected, for theorizing purity and impurity in their specificity.     

FDR, Lewis Douglas, and the, Raw Deal

"Despite my emotions, I could not refuse the responsibility which has been offered; for in times like these, even more so than in times of war, individuals cease to be significant. Only the common welfare is important," explained Lewis Douglas in 1933 as he accepted President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt's offer of the position of director of the budget.¹ Douglas came to his post with a strong sense of obligation—he was certain the United States was in a "critical condition," and the only solution to the devastating depression lay in balancing the budget.² Roosevelt seemingly agreed with Douglas. Newspapers reported that the young budget director would "make his mark in the Roosevelt administration" and "be at the heart of things." Journalists argued that Roosevelt's appointment was an "indication that Roosevelt means business in his promise to reduce government costs."³     

IMMORTALITY YET? Or,the permanence of Mary Douglas

There is no absolute measure for the lasting impact of work by anthropologists. However, the scholarship of Mary Douglas has achieved wide‐ranging interdisciplinary recognition. Here the author considers ways in which her work has impacted scholarship.     

C. Douglas Dillon,President Kennedy's Economic Envoy*

This article focuses on President John F. Kennedy's Secretary of the Treasury, C. Douglas Dillon and contends that he played an important part in sustaining the political cooperation that underpinned the Bretton-Woods system during one of its first crisis points. Rather than focusing solely on structural, economic trends, the article suggests that individual actors mattered as well. As a bipartisan figure that was well regarded in Europe, Dillon was able to act effectively as an envoy to the private sector, principally Wall Street, and to France, which both threatened the stability of the dollar. The article explores Dillon's role in shaping Kennedy's economic policies in a more conservative direction than his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, and in his external efforts to garner support for the Democratic administration.