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

This edited volume draws historians, anthropologists and archaeologists 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.#xE025 Front Matter ....Pages i-xv Introduction: The Challenge of the Epidemic Corpse (Christos Lynteris, Nicholas H. A. Evans)....Pages 1-25 Failed Ritual? Medieval Papal Funerals and the Death of Clement VI (1352) (Joëlle Rollo-Koster)....Pages 27-53 Fear and the Corpse: Cholera and Plague Riots Compared (Samuel Cohn Jr.)....Pages 55-81 Bloeming-Typhoidtein: Epidemic Jingoism and the Typhoid Corpse in South Africa (Jacob Steere-Williams)....Pages 83-108 Suspicious Corpses: Body Dumping and Plague in Colonial Hong Kong (Christos Lynteris)....Pages 109-133 Composing and Decomposing Bodies: Visualizing Death and Disease in an Era of Global War, Pestilence, and Famine, 1913–1923 (Michael Anton Budd)....Pages 135-164 Shrouded Corpses, Walking Cadavers: The Shifting of ‘the Choleras’ in Depictions of Southeastern Captivity (Lizzie Oliver)....Pages 165-187 The Burial Pit as Bio-historical Archive (Lukas Engelmann)....Pages 189-211 Postscript: Epidemic History and the Ebola Present (James Fairhead)....Pages 213-221 Back Matter ....Pages 223-230 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.