Techno-Prosthetic Romantic FuturismKeeping CleanDebbie Lee said, "Well, soap. I'm interested in the politics of a thing like soap. You had to get it somehow. Those blacks in Sierra Leon. Some filed heartrending petitions for soap." [1] And it occurred to me that soap had a role to play in the production of culture. Not symbolically, as in cleanliness is next to Godliness, but literally. It's one of those things, like whiteness. If you have it, you're unmarked. What is the cost, economically and culturally, of a cake of soap? [2] Notes1. Conversation during a symposium on Black Romanticism, October 22, 2003, Penn State University. 2. Anna Leticia Barbauld would know. See "Washing Day," The Poems of Anna Leticia Barbauld (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1994). Navigation |