1st Edition
The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Heritage, and Death
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 perspectives and potential resolutions, and suggest how death and dying should be presented to the public. Acknowledging that professionals in the galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM) fields are engaging in vital discussions about repatriation and anti-colonialist narratives, the book includes reflections on a variety of deathscapes that are at the forefront of the debate. Taking a multivocal approach, the handbook provides a foundation for debate as well as a reference for how the dead are treated within the public arena. Most important, perhaps, the book highlights best practices and calls for more ethical frameworks and strategies for collaboration, particularly with descendant communities.
The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Heritage, and Death will be useful to all individuals working with, studying, and interested in curation and exhibition at museums and heritage sites around the world. It will be of particular interest to those working in the fields of heritage, museum studies, death studies, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, and history.
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.
