Technologies of the human corpse
"How human technological interventions into death and the dead body since the nineteenth century have had a profound impact on today's (and future) end-of-life and human mortality realities. As Director of the Centre for Death and Society, the world's only interdisciplinary studies centre dedicated to researching death, dying, and the dead body, and the son of an American Funeral Director who grew up in the funeral industry, I am uniquely positioned to author a new book on the human corpse and technology. Death and the dead body are both extremely popular topics, and the books being currently published are tapping into that popular appeal. Most of these books, however, cover topics that remain perennially discussed. Indeed, it is striking how so many of the current books on death and dying reflect the same issues raised during the 1970's, a decade during which Publisher's Weekly enthusiastically told its readers "Death is now selling books!" A quick snapshot of some current(ish) death, dying, and dead body books includes, but is certainly not limited to: Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, which was published in 2003 but remains widely read thirteen-years later; more recent books, such as Atul Gawande's Being Mortal, Caitlin Doughty's Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, and Brandy Schillace's Death's Summer Coat have all tapped into this popular genre. Books by academic authors such as Margaret Schwartz's Dead Matter and Thomas Laqueur's The Work of the Dead present historical and cultural contexts that are equally important. My listing of texts could exceed several pages but what is important about most contemporary death books is that the texts rarely give the history of publishing books on death much analysis. If any death-topic authors' names appear they are usually Jessica Mitford, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, and Ernest Becker. Sigmund Freud sometimes appears (in connection to Becker) but on the whole these specific authors represent a fraction of the 'death canon.' What I am writing improves on these texts by presenting readers with a more complex and interesting history than most books on death, dying, and the dead body currently pursue. In a nutshell I present a longer view on how human technological interventions into death and the dead body since the nineteenth century have had a profound impact on today's (and future) end-of-life and human mortality realities. It is too easy to sum up most current books on death, dying, and the dead body by simply saying, "We've been here before" - but it's also accurate. What my book presents are new and important ways to critically understand both the distant and recent past of human death, e.g., nineteenth century postmortem photography's crucial relationship to twentieth century life extension technology. Ironically, these nineteenth century historical records are often archived and accessible (and very well presented in MIT Press's Secure the Shadow by Jay Ruby), whereas web based material from twenty, even ten-years-ago often disappears before it can be analyzed and discussed. The key point for any book being written about death and dying today is that it really needs to understand and articulate how popular interest in death didn't emerge from nowhere. The current popularity of death, dying, and the dead body is the result of many individuals working in many different fields over the last two centuries as both academics and practitioners. More than anything the collective twenty-first century discourse on death needs to have its dominant narratives challenged and pushed in new directions. This book takes on that challenge and re-defines death, dying, and the dead body for readers by opening up human mortality's complicated and often vexing history"--
