Description: We need to talk about dead bodies. Now. Pandemics. Funeral technology. End-of-life planning. Humans confronting dying. Death and the human corpse have never been more alive in the public imagination.
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Menu Book Author Acclaim Media Buy Close Menu Book Author Acclaim Media Buy Scroll Down Technologies of the Human Corpse Death and the dead body have never been more alive in the public imagination—not least because of current debates over modern medical technology that is deployed, it seems, expressly to keep human bodies from dying, blurring the boundary between alive and dead. In this book, John Troyer examines the relationship of the dead body with technology, both material and conceptual: the physical
Troyer explains, for example, how technologies of the nineteenth century, including embalming and photography, created our image of a dead body as quasiatemporal, existing outside biological limits formerly enforced by decomposition. He describes the “Happy Death Movement” of the 1970s; the politics of the HIV/ AIDS corpse and the productive potential of the dead body; the provocations of the Body Worlds exhibits and their use of preserved dead bodies; the black market in human body parts; and the transform
Dr. John Troyer is the Director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath . He is a co-founder of the Death Reference Desk website, the Future Cemetery Project and a frequent commentator for the BBC. He grew up in the American Funeral industry.