Anatomy as spectacle: public exhibitions of the body from 1700 to the present

Abstract

This book examines public exhibitions of human anatomy from their first appearance in the early 1700s to the present day. While public anatomical exhibitions might seem to occupy a marginal position in the histories of popular culture and of medicine, their distinctive intermixing of the medical and spectacular has made them an influential and intensely productive cultural space, an important site for the popularisation for new ideas about bodily health and care. This book traces the influential role of such exhibitions in popularising a distinctly modern idea of the body as something requiring constant work and careful self-cultivation—an idea which continues to shape the contemporary fascination with practices and possibilities of self-improvement. [Book summary from publisher]

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