Death's lifers: Anatomy exhibitions and the trouble with looking

This critical-creative paper examines the phenomenon of ‘Body Shows’ (as popularized by the anatomist Gunther von Hagens) in relation to theories of the body, drawing on the author's own experience of such exhibitions. It seeks to trouble the notion of the ‘gut reaction’ by reading body shows as a site where the history of anatomy and anatomical representation and theories of embodiment offered by post-humanism collide uneasily. Ultimately, it suggests that our responses pose fundamental questions – not so much about how we evaluate the ‘authenticity’ of those ‘other’ bodies, but about the terms through which we experience our own.