The Bodies Poetic: Identity and Interaction with the Dead

Description

This book examines the intricate relationships between the living and the dead, revealing how these interactions shape group identities and facilitate ongoing negotiations of self and community. Beginning with a rich exploration of bioarchaeological theories, this volume introduces an enriched Poetics model, which deepens our understanding of not just skeletal remains, but the broader contexts that imbue bodies with social significance and how those bodies in turn can produce socially significant changes. By emphasizing the roles of performance and ritual, the work illustrates how the dead serve as powerful tools in the creation and maintenance of social structures. Through compelling case studies of ancient and modern mortuary practices, it highlights the changing meanings of the body across different historical and cultural landscapes. The volume demonstrates that while our interpretations may shift, the body remains a profound source of meaning and identity. By analyzing patterns of modification and representation, this book provides invaluable insights into social change and how group identity is forged. Series Foreword Preface Acknowledgments Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 The Poetics Framework 1.2 Structure of the Volume 1.3 A Note on Sources 1.4 Conclusion References Part I: Building a Model of Poetics in Bioarchaeology Chapter 2: Poetics and Identity 2.1 Identity Formation 2.2 Summary References Chapter 3: Bioarchaeology and the Bodies 3.1 Why Study Bodies? 3.2 The Three Bodies, Structure, Practice, and Power 3.2.1 Bodies and Buffering 3.2.2 Structur(ation) and Practice 3.2.3 Practice and Power Relationships 3.3 Embodiment and the Bodies 3.4 Intersectionality 3.4.1 Intersectional Trauma, Intersectional Processing 3.5 Bodies and Boundaries 3.6 Summary References Chapter 4: Mortuary Archaeology: What Do We Learn from Mortuary Contexts? 4.1 The New Archaeology 4.2 Marxist Approaches: Conflict and Meaning 4.3 The Dead Don’t Bury Themselves: Post-processual Paradigms 4.3.1 Space and Place: The Role of Landscape Theory and the Phenomenological Approach 4.3.2 Materiality and Agency 4.3.3 Materiality and Embodiment 4.3.4 Materiality and Practice: Actors and Agents 4.3.5 Materializing Social Power 4.4 Ethnographic Approaches to Death and Mortuary Ritual 4.5 Summary References Chapter 5: The Poetics of Processing: Bodies as Cultural Media 5.1 The Body as Material Culture 5.1.1 The Body as a Phenomenological Object 5.2 Community and Identity in the Third Space 5.2.1 As a Way to Legitimize Cultural Change 5.2.2 In African-American Contexts 5.3 Summary References Part II: Applying the Model Chapter 6: Preservation as Processing 6.1 The Antebellum Way of Death 6.2 Death and the Civil War 6.2.1 The Rise of Embalming and Preservation 6.3 Post-war Death in the US 6.4 Twentieth Century Death and Mourning in the US: the Birth of a ‘Traditional’ Funeral 6.5 Making Mummies 6.5.1 Ancestor Veneration to Dedication? The Changing Role of the Body in Bronze Age Britain 6.5.2 Buddhist Mummification and Veneration 6.6 Summary References Chapter 7: Inhumation and Cremation 7.1 Identifying Cemetery Spaces, Churchyards, Burial Grounds and the Differences Between Them 7.2 Making Places Matter with Bodies 7.2.1 Potter’s Fields 7.2.2 Plague pits and Bone Beds: Epidemic and Mass Burials 7.2.3 Mass Graves and Conflict 7.2.4 Burial Within Churches in Medieval Europe 7.2.5 Faith-Based Cemeteries: the Materiality of Belief 7.2.6 Cemeteries for the Executed 7.3 Cremation as Social Process in the Past (Eurasia) 7.3.1 Marking Social change with cremation and Inhumation in the Roman World 7.4 Summary References Chapter 8: A Few Famous Cemeteries 8.1 Arlington National Cemetery (Arlington, VA, USA) 8.1.1 Origins and Development 8.1.2 The Current State of Arlington 8.2 St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 (New Orleans, LA, USA) 8.3 Okunoin Cemetery (Mount Koya, Japan) 8.4 Cimetière du Père Lachaise (Paris, France) 8.5 Summary References Chapter 9: The (In)famous Dead 9.1 Marie Laveau 9.2 Frank Little 9.3 Marie Skłodowska Curie 9.4 The SL-1 Dead: Richard Leroy McKinley, John Byres, and Richard Legg 9.5 Emmett Till 9.6 The Presley Family 9.7 Summary References Part III: Modern Interactions with the Dead Chapter 10: Cremation and the Disposal of Ashes 10.1 Modern Methods: Wet and Dry Cremation 10.2 Modern Meaning 10.2.1 ‘Scattering’ Ashes 10.2.2 Memorial Reefs, New Rituals, and Memorial Vacations 10.2.3 Fireworks 10.2.4 To Boldly Go… Reaching for the Stars, Becoming Comets 10.2.5 Cremains Can Become Many Things 10.3 Modern Viking Funerals (the Legal Way in the US) 10.4 Summary References Chapter 11: Modern Interactions with the Dead 11.1 Mortuary Ritual Before Death 11.1.1 Funeral Preplanning 11.1.2 Rituals for the Dying 11.2 Modern Inhumation: Green Burials as Emblematic of Social Relationships and Identity 11.3 Body Donation (or How Grover Cleveland and His Wolfhounds Got to the Smithsonian) 11.3.1 Body Donation at the FAC 11.3.1.1 Why Do People Donate? 11.3.1.2 Who Donates? 11.3.1.3 At the FAC: The Process 11.3.1.4 Donation and Memorialization 11.3.1.5 Living Subjects Research 11.4 Body Composting 11.5 Summary References Chapter 12: Modern Memorialization: Vernacular Memorials 12.1 Roadside Memorials 12.1.1 Spontaneous Shrines 12.2 Tattoos as a Memorial 12.3 Virtual Memorials 12.4 Modern Material Culture: Material Remains as Modern Mortuary Performance 12.5 Decorating Graves 12.5.1 Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) 12.6 What Do We Learn from Vernacular Memorials? 12.7 Summary References Part IV: Bodies and Politics Chapter 13: Nation Building with Bodies 13.1 Tombs of the Unknown Soldier (Arlington National Cemetery) 13.1.1 World War I 13.1.2 World War I and Korea 13.1.3 Vietnam 13.1.4 Unidentified Does Not Mean Unidentifiable 13.1.5 The Tomb Guards 13.2 The Political Lives of Dead Bodies 13.2.1 Authenticity, Statues, and the Life of Lenin's Corpse in Modern Russia 13.2.2 Balkan Bodies, Mass Graves, Landscape, and Identity 13.2.3 Politics, Repatriation, and Yagan 13.3 Massacres, Genocide and Bodies 13.3.1 Memorializing Genocide with Bodies 13.4 Summary References Chapter 14: NAGPRA, Sovereignty, and the Ancestors 14.1 The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) 14.1.1 Framing Our Relationship to the Dead: Who owns the dead? Who Is Responsible to the Dead? 14.1.2 Who Is an Ancestor? Stakeholder? Affiliated Group? 14.2 Summary References Part V: Bodies and Material Culture Chapter 15: The Body in Education, Art, and Religion 15.1 The Body as Education 15.1.1 Egyptomania and Mummy Unwrapping Parties 15.1.2 Museum Displays: Fetishizing Death and the Other? 15.1.3 Display as Punishment 15.2 Dissection and Anatomization 15.2.1 Cadaveric Processing and Post-dissection Rituals 15.2.2 The Use of Unclaimed Bodies in Medical Education 15.3 Historical Documented Collections (HDCs) and Anthropological Research 15.4 The Body as Medicine: Medicinal Cannibalism 15.4.1 Mumia or Mummy 15.4.2 Other Early Modern Uses: Salves 15.5 The Body as Art: “Pharaohs as Paint and Paper” 15.6 The Body as Sustenance: Anthropophagy 15.6.1 Communion: Ritual Consumption of Human Tissue 15.6.2 Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism 15.7 Summary References Chapter 16: Relics and Reliquaries 16.1 Religious Relics 16.2 Monarchic Relics 16.3 Nationalistic Relics 16.4 Scientific Relics 16.5 Cultural and Personal Relics 16.6 War Trophies 16.7 Summary References Chapter 17: Wrapping Up: The Poetics of Mortuary Performance and Us References Index