The Anatomy of Body Worlds: Critical Essays on the Plastinated Cadavers of Gunther Von HagensT. Christine Jespersen, Alicita Rodríguez, Joseph Starr Since its Tokyo debut in 1995, Gunther von Hagens' Body Worlds exhibition has been visited by more than 25 million people at museums and science centers across North America, Europe, and Asia. Preserved through von Hagens' unique process of plastination, the bodies shown in the controversial exhibit are posed to mimic life and art, from a striking re-creation of Rodin's The Thinker, to a preserved horse and its human rider, a basketball player, and a reclining pregnant woman--complete with fetus in its eighth month. This interdisciplinary volume analyzes Body Worlds from a number of perspectives, describing the legal, ethical, sociological, and religious concerns which seem to accompany the exhibition as it travels the world. |
Contents
Acknowledgments | 1 |
The Plastinates Narrative | 8 |
Melancholy PostBiological | 16 |
Copyright | |
18 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Anatomical Exhibition anatomical museum anatomical specimens anatomist Anatomy and Plastination Anatomy films Andreas Nachama Angelina artist audiences authentic Auto-Icon beautiful Bentham bodies on display Body Art Body Worlds exhibition Burke cadavers California Science Center collection consent contemporary controversy critical cultural dead bodies death Der Spiegel dissection donated donors essay ethics Eucharist Exhibition of Real experience female fetal personhood fetus fetuses figure films flesh Frankfurter Rundschau freak show gaze German Gestalt Plastinates Gruesome Corpses Gunther von Hagens Heidelberg Holocaust horror Ibid identity images individual Institute for Plastination Körperwelten Kyrgyzstan living London Mannheim medicine models muscles narrative natural Nazi Nazism object organs plas plastinated body plastinated specimens political poses pregnant present preserved queer Real Human Bodies rendered representation reproductive Ruzowitzky scientific sense sideshow skeleton skin social sublime suggest taboo tinates tion tradition twilife viewer Visible Human Project visitors Whalley whole body plastinates woman