Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse

In: Palgrave Historical Studies in the Criminal Corpse and Its Afterlife Series

Abstract

Intro -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Part I The Criminal Corpse in History -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- The Criminal Corpse -- The World of the Murder Act -- Body and Power -- Chapter 2 The Power of the Criminal Corpse in the Medieval World -- Getting Medieval on Your Ass -- Early Medieval Death and the Context of Punitive Death -- Late Medieval Death and the Changing Context of Punishment -- Medieval Bodies: Living, Lived, Dead and Damned -- Death and the Dead Body in the Medieval World -- Scary Monsters -- Magic and Mummia -- Crime Is to Sin as Punishment Is to Penance -- Pain: The Aim of Punishment or Its By-Product? -- Medieval Criminal Law and Sanctions on the Body -- Powerful Punishments and Traitors' Bodies -- Into Modernity -- Chapter 3 How Was the Power of the Criminal Corpse Harnessed in Early Modern England? -- The Context -- Changes in Criminal Justice During the Age of Spectacular Punishment -- The Uses of the Dead in Early Modernity -- Changing Meanings of the Dead Body -- Building a New Medicine -- The Dissected Body as Cultural Symbol -- Medicine and Folklore -- The Social Consequences of Deviancy -- The Reformation and the End of Purgatory -- Good and Bad Deaths -- Uses of the Criminal Body -- The Power of the State -- Subverting the Theatre of Pain -- Early Modern Criminal Bodies -- The Criminal Body in Different Belief Discourses -- Part II The World of the Murder Act -- Chapter 4 Murder and the Law, 1752-1832 -- Making the Murder Act -- Making Criminal Corpses -- Impacts, Intended and Otherwise, of the Murder Act -- Unmaking the Murder Act -- Chapter 5 Anatomisation and Dissection -- Duty, Death, and Discretion -- 'I'm Not Dead Yet!' Medical Men and the Uncertainty of Death -- Between Science, Spectacle and the State -- Access and Ambition -- 'Good Bodies': Damage, Decay and Timing.