Histories of Post-Mortem Contagion: Infectious Corpses and Contested Burials (Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3319874314 ISBN 13: 9783319874319

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

Synopsis

This edited volume draws historians and anthropologists together to explore the contested worlds of epidemic corpses and their disposal. Why are burials so frequently at the center of disagreement, recrimination and protest during epidemics? Why are the human corpses produced in the course of infectious disease outbreaks seen as dangerous, not just to the living, but also to the continued existence of society and civilization? Examining cases from the Black Death to Ebola, contributors challenge the predominant idea that a single, universal framework of contagion can explain the political, social and cultural importance and impact of the epidemic corpse. 

About this title

About the Author

Christos Lynteris is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews, UK, and Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded research project Visual Representations of the Third Plague Pandemic. He is the author of The Spirit of Selflessness in Maoist China (Palgrave, 2012) and Ethnographic Plague (Palgrave, 2016). 

Nicholas H. A. Evans is a Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the London School of Economics, UK. His work focuses on understanding the comparative and historical nature of doubt and uncertainty, and he was a member (2014-17) of the Visual Representations of the Third Plague Pandemic project at the University of Cambridge.

From the Back Cover

This edited volume draws historians and anthropologists together to explore the contested worlds of epidemic corpses and their disposal. Why are burials so frequently at the center of disagreement, recrimination and protest during epidemics? Why are the human corpses produced in the course of infectious disease outbreaks seen as dangerous, not just to the living, but also to the continued existence of society and civilization? Examining cases from the Black Death to Ebola, contributors challenge the predominant idea that a single, universal framework of contagion can explain the political, social and cultural importance and impact of the epidemic corpse. 

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3319874314
• ISBN 13: 9783319874319
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 247
• Editor: Lynteris Christos, Evans Nicholas H A