Description
Book SynopsisBy examining the association between photography and embalming—both as aesthetics and as mourning practices—Margaret Schwartz theorizes the connections between the body and the image and outlines a new politics of representation.
Trade Review"In a deep, sophisticated, and riveting book, Margaret Schwartz shows us how corpses become focal points for collective meaning—in nation construction, in violence and martyrdom, and in the passion of fandom. In explaining how the dead circulate among the living, Dead Matter gives us the tools to better understand death as a social and communicative phenomenon, and, one hopes, build more thoughtful relations with the dead."—Jonathan Sterne, author of MP3: The Meaning of a Format and The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction
"Dead Matter bridges important theorizations of death, the human corpse, and mediation. This book is a critical connecting point between seemingly disparate fields of study."—John Troyer, Deputy Director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath
Table of ContentsContents
Preface
Introduction: An Iconography of the Flesh
1. The Body of the Nation
2. Martyred Bodies
3. Tabloid Bodies
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
