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I See Dead People: Insights From the Humanities Into the Nature of Plastinated Cadavers

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Abstract

Accounts from the humanities which focus on describing the nature of whole body plastinates are examined. We argue that this literature shows that plastinates do not clearly occupy standard cultural binary categories of interior or exterior, real or fake, dead or alive, bodies or persons, self or other and argue that Noël Carroll’s structural framework for horrific monsters unites the various accounts of the contradictory or ambiguous nature of plastinates while also showing how plastinates differ from horrific fictional monsters. In doing so, it offers an account of the varied reactions of those responding to exhibitions of plastinated whole bodies.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Correspondence to D. Gareth Jones.

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1It is pertinent to note that an increasing number of medical curricula no longer utilize cadavers or even body parts but computer simulations and models. While this is a highly controversial trend within medical education, it demonstrates that some educators are not convinced that the teaching and learning of anatomy requires the observation of, let alone the dissection of, “real” bodies.

2We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing this point.

3Although Kristeva (1982) claims cadavers to be the ultimate in abjection, she was writing in a time before public display of plastinated cadavers and makes no claims about the latter in particular. Nevertheless, as discussed, others have applied her ideas to plastinates (Kuppers 2004; Muller 2006; Scott 2008; Stern 2006; Lizama 2009; Ruchti 2009, 189; Lewis 2007).

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King, M.R., Whitaker, M.I. & Jones, D.G. I See Dead People: Insights From the Humanities Into the Nature of Plastinated Cadavers. J Med Humanit 35, 361–376 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-013-9230-z

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