1st Edition

The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Heritage, and Death

Edited By Trish Biers, Katie Stringer Clary Copyright 2024
607 Pages 59 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

607 Pages 59 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

607 Pages 59 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book provides a comprehensive examination of death, dying, and human remains in museums and heritage sites around the world. Presenting a diverse range of contributions from scholars, practitioners, and artists, the book reminds us that death and the dead body are omnipresent in museum and heritage spaces. Chapters appraise collection practices and their historical context, present global... Read more

Introduction

Trish Biers and Katie Stringer Clary

Part 1: Acquisition, Curation, and Conservation of the Dead

1. Historical Contexts of Bodies, Display, and Spectacle

Katie Stringer Clary

2. Conserving the Humanity of Human Remains

Cat Irving

3. A Museum Archive: An Unexpected Final Resting Place but One Full of Promise

Jelena Bekvalac

4. Striking a Balance: Preserving, Curating, and Investigating Human Remains from the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Sicily

Kirsty Squires and Dario Piombino-Mascali

5. The Handling of the Remains of the Ancestors in Peru: Realities, Challenges, and Wishes

Guido P. Lombardi, Rubén Buitrón, Lizbeht Tepo, Clide Valladolid, Bradymir Bravo, Susana Arce, Elva Torres, Sonia Guillén, and Trish Biers

6. Engaging with Death in Museums and Collections

Trish Biers

Part 2: Displaying the Dead: Exhibitions and Ethical Considerations

7. Education, Preservation and Reconciliation: The J.L. Shellshear Museum and the Preservation and Display of Human Remains

Denise Donlon and Fiona Gill

8. The Mummies of Guanajuato: The Tension between Ethics and Ambition

Paloma Robles Lacayo

9. The Cost of Civil Rights: Loss, Grief, and Death at US Civil Rights Museums

Jenny Woodley

10. Changing People, Changing Content: New Perspectives on Past Peoples

Rebecca Redfern and Thomas Booth

11. Transforming Memento Mori: A Contemporary Lens

Charles Clary

12. The Hollywood Museum of Death: The Commodification of the Maiden, Criminal and the Corpse

Tia Tudor Price

Part 3: Decolonisation and Shifting the Perspective in Museums and Heritage

13. Papuan Pasts: The Origins of Papuan Human Remains Collections in the World’s Museums, the Issue of Repatriation, and Telling New Stories with Skeletal Data

Jason Kariwiga, Gabriel Wrobel, and Michael C. Westaway

14. Searching for Identities through Archaeological Human Remains in Turkey

Eli̇fgül Doğan

15. Entangled Entitlements and Shuar Tsantsa (Shrunken Heads)

Laura N.K. Van Broekhoven

16. Julia Pastrana’s Long Journey Home

Laura Anderson Barbata

17. Egyptian Mummified Remains: Communities of Descent and Practice

Heba Abd el-Gawad and Alice Stevenson

18. The Curated Ossilegium: Museum Practices as Death and Mourning Rituals

Evi Numen

Part 4: Deathscapes and Heritage

19. From Dead Places to Places of the Dead: The Memorial Power of Battlefields, Ruins, and Burials in the Warscapes of Spain and the Western Front

Dacia Viejo-Rose, Layla Renshaw, and Paola Filippucci

20. From Trauma to Tourism: Balancing the Needs of the Living and the Dead

Joanne Mather

21. Death, Memory, and Power: Public Memorial Culture of Moscow Necropolises

Maria Kucheryavaya

22. Not Their Heritage Theme Park: Honouring the Outcast at Crossbones Graveyard

Lucy Coleman Talbot

23. The Ghosts of Kūkai: Virtual Heritage and Landscapes of Death in Japan’s Shikoku Pilgrimage

Ronald S. Green and Susan J. Bergeron

24. A Shadow Pandemic: Protest, Mourning, and Grassroots Memorialization in Mexico City

Kelsey Perreault

Part 5: Public Education and Engagement in Museums and Heritage

25. Engagement That Works: Practical Insights for Inviting the Public into Cemeteries

Kimberly Bearden

26. Talking About the D Word: Public Engagement in a Place of the Dead

Janine Marriott

27. The Death Positive Library

Stacey Pitsillides, Claire Nally, Anita Luby, Rhonda Brooks, Fiona Hill, Joanne Ghee, Katherine Ingham, and Judith Robinson

28. Haunted Houses and Horrific History: Ghost Tours at Historic House Museums

Katie Stringer Clary and David Hearnes

29. Walking, Public Engagement, and Pedagogy: Mobile Death Studies

Ruth Penfold-Mounce

Part 6: Death Studies and Heritage in Practice

30. The Cemetery Church of All Saints with the Ossuary

Radka Krejčí

31. Memento Mori Exhibition from the Dominican Crypt, Vác (Március 15 Square, 19) Hungary

Anita Csukovits and Katalin Forró

32. Our Queerly Departed – Researching, Remembering and Respecting the LGBTQ+ Deceased

Sacha Coward

33. Close Encounters with Death and Disease: Young Visitors’ Perspectives at the Mütter Medical History Museum

Rachel Anisha Divaker and Mary Margaret Kerr

34. The Use of CT scan for the Construction of Mummy Replicas for Museography: Social and Ethical Perspectives

Verónica Silva-Pinto, Mario Castro, Yanis Valenzuela-Sánchez, Ayelén Tonko-Huenucoy, Carlos Montoya, Marcelo Gálvez, and Trish Biers

Part 7: Concluding Remarks

Trish Biers and Katie Stringer Clary

Biography

Trish Biers curates the Duckworth Laboratory (human and non-human primate remains) in the Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.

Katie Stringer Clary is an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Coastal Carolina University.