Project Proposal:

Corpses on display between respect for the dead, freedom of art and scientific and educational purposes. Mummies, anatomical museums and exhibitions of plastinated bodies by Gunther Von Hagens [1]. Analysis of some famous court cases in the United States, France and Italy. Adjunct supervisor: Katia Fiorenza, Phd, Associated Professor of Comparative Law

Is it possible to expose human dead bodies in a museum or other public space? Is it possible reproduce freely human dead bodies by photos or video? All cultures and societies have always considered human remains objects of respect, and they always had conceived discharge and burial rites to celebrate the end of life. Burying corpses was one of the most ancient and shared obligations of humanity. Memory and respect of ancestors had always an important role in the historical and cultural identity of people, individually considered or organized in society. Moreover, ancestors and human corpse were not always the same thing. Normally, religious, legal and social rules respect buried corpses and their signification. But not always the corpse are considered by the same rules in its materiality. What is a corpse really? What do we feel when we look at a corpse? Curiosity, fear, respect, superstition, admiration? Are our feelings always derived from what we felt looking the same body when it was alive? Why in all historical periods and in every country did legal rules protect and preserved corpses? Which were the values involved? Religious values? Hygienic requirements? Family values and respect for ancestors? Public order? Human dignity? Collective feelings? Undefined fears? Exposition of dead bodies, as mummies, anatomical specimen, public dissection or the new exhibition of plastinated bodies by Gunther Von Hagens had highlighted all the problems involved by these questions. Show people ancient mummies, anatomical museum and also real human dead bodies can be useful. Medical and surgical education, historical and cultural identity, history of science and of its challenges to discover the human body’s secrets need it. Maybe the knowledge of ourselves need it. But which are the boundaries, the limits? How to balance scientific need, artistic freedom and respect for the dead? Legal rules are obliged to search and apply these boundaries and limits, and they are obliged to search for a balance, too. To analyze the social and cultural debate born around some celebrated case law in the United States, France and Italy allows to better understanding how people from different countries - with similar scientific and legal rules but not always with the same cultural and historical experience – consider their relationship with death and dead bodies.

For this topic, readings in English, as well as in Spanish and French, if the students know these languages, will be submitted to the MIT students, to then organize a debate - which would include an intervention in which to comment on the readings made - in the field of the activities of in-depth study of Professor Ciancio’s course of “Legal History”, aimed at interested teachers, graduate students and students of other courses of the Department and the University.

Personal page of Professor Cristina Ciancio: https://www.unisannio.it/en/user/811/curriculum

Personal page of Professor Katia Fiorenza: https://www.unisannio.it/sites/default/files/sito/ateneo/utenti/profilo-titoli/katia-fiorenza/curriculum/Curriculum_Fiorenza_%28italiano-inglese%29.pdf

[1] Lawrence Burns, “Gunther von Hagens’ BODY WORLDS: selling beautiful education, May 2007, The American Journal of Bioethics 7 (4):12-23