About Me

I'm a PhD student researching the role of the archaeological dead in contemporary British society. Think of this as a scrapbook of all the interesting links, snippets of information and random bits and bobs I come across pertaining to death, dying and the dead. Enjoy?!

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    Auschwitz: How relevant is it in today’s society?

    A while ago, I was having a conversation with friends; the Holocaust came up and we began to tentatively discuss it. After a few minutes, one friend, who had been keeping very quiet, looked up and said, slightly confused: “What even is the Holocaust?”… I know: I was completely stunned. She is a relatively sensible person, yet seemed to have no knowledge of this massive historical event. The Holocaust, this significant chunk of world history, this stain on life in the 20th century, and probably one of the most discussed atrocities in the whole of history, had not even registered its existence to her.

    I was particularly offended by her comment, due to feeling slightly more acquainted with the event than many other people I know. For, as part of a project engineered by Holocaust Educational Trust, in March 2012 I visited the site of Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

    As well as being deeply moved by the horrific personal stories and deathly atmosphere of the place, I found it extremely hard to know how to react to the place as a museum. Looking through some of the few pictures I took from the day, I’m struck by how uncomfortable and serious I look; it’s not like smiling for the camera as a visitor abroad, or in a conventional museum; the whole place demands respect, especially in the photos you take as a visitor. But is it even right to be a visitor, taking snaps for the album, labelling the place as a museum?

    Full article here.

    theossuary: From the article “The Morgue” by Rachael Weaver in Meanjin. midnightgallery: Paris Morgue 1883. A kind of dark tourism was commonplace in the nineteenth century, with a variety of different spectacles and events associated with violence, death and deformity often becoming framed or experienced as macabre and sensational forms of entertainment. Executions, the trials of infamous criminals, waxworks and anatomical museums, and even slums and opium dens could all be relied upon to draw fascinated viewers whose expressions of horror in response to what they saw most often equalled their curiosity and enjoyment. The newspapers played a crucial role in sensationalising the banal details of everyday life in the modern metropolis by embedding them within thrilling narratives of urban danger and excitement. Every fight or brawl, anonymous suicide, railway accident, murder or infanticide became not just an event to be reported in itself, but also a story of the community’s engagement with trauma, death and violence. News reports of the large crowds that flocked to the sites related to notorious crimes such as cemeteries, court houses, prisons and murder scenes confirmed the sensational nature of a case and, in turn, helped to draw increasing numbers of onlookers. The Paris morgue was one of the most famous international sites for this kind of macabre voyeurism in the nineteenth century. From 1864 until 1921 the morgue was located on the quai de l’Archevêché near Notre Dame, nearly within jumping distance of the Seine (from the waters of which many of its subjects were retrieved). The bodies of the anonymous dead were displayed on black marble slabs behind a large glass window for members of the public to view, day or night, seven days a week. Green curtains were hung at either end so that authorities were able to obscure the public’s view when changing the exhibits, intensifying its resemblance to a stage show. Comparisons to waxworks, the theatre and even department store windows were made regularly in sensational newspaper commentaries, which always accompanied the appearance of a new corpse, while the morgue itself was included along with the city’s other tourist attractions in all the guidebooks of Paris.

    theossuary:

    From the article “The Morgue” by Rachael Weaver in Meanjin.

    midnightgallery:

    Paris Morgue 1883.

    A kind of dark tourism was commonplace in the nineteenth century, with a variety of different spectacles and events associated with violence, death and deformity often becoming framed or experienced as macabre and sensational forms of entertainment. Executions, the trials of infamous criminals, waxworks and anatomical museums, and even slums and opium dens could all be relied upon to draw fascinated viewers whose expressions of horror in response to what they saw most often equalled their curiosity and enjoyment. The newspapers played a crucial role in sensationalising the banal details of everyday life in the modern metropolis by embedding them within thrilling narratives of urban danger and excitement. Every fight or brawl, anonymous suicide, railway accident, murder or infanticide became not just an event to be reported in itself, but also a story of the community’s engagement with trauma, death and violence. News reports of the large crowds that flocked to the sites related to notorious crimes such as cemeteries, court houses, prisons and murder scenes confirmed the sensational nature of a case and, in turn, helped to draw increasing numbers of onlookers.

    The Paris morgue was one of the most famous international sites for this kind of macabre voyeurism in the nineteenth century. From 1864 until 1921 the morgue was located on the quai de l’Archevêché near Notre Dame, nearly within jumping distance of the Seine (from the waters of which many of its subjects were retrieved). The bodies of the anonymous dead were displayed on black marble slabs behind a large glass window for members of the public to view, day or night, seven days a week. Green curtains were hung at either end so that authorities were able to obscure the public’s view when changing the exhibits, intensifying its resemblance to a stage show. Comparisons to waxworks, the theatre and even department store windows were made regularly in sensational newspaper commentaries, which always accompanied the appearance of a new corpse, while the morgue itself was included along with the city’s other tourist attractions in all the guidebooks of Paris.

    (via theossuary)

    7 Unexpectedly Nice Places to be Buried, Drowned, or Otherwise Disposed Of…  Getting old and dying… what can we say, it’s a six-foot downer. But there is a silver lining: figuring out how you want your remains to be treated can put the “fun” back in “funeral.” We at NileGuide are all for donations to science, ceremonial scatterings of ash, and good ol’ fashioned burial, but it’s pretty interesting how different people around the globe deal with the dead. Seasoned travelers that we are, scary cemeteries and creepy catacombs just don’t bring out the morbid curiosity in us any more. But there are some ridiculously cool historical and religious customs surrounding the dead that deserve a place in tour books. And a stop on your next trip.

    7 Unexpectedly Nice Places to be Buried, Drowned, or Otherwise Disposed Of…

     Getting old and dying… what can we say, it’s a six-foot downer. But there is a silver lining: figuring out how you want your remains to be treated can put the “fun” back in “funeral.” We at NileGuide are all for donations to science, ceremonial scatterings of ash, and good ol’ fashioned burial, but it’s pretty interesting how different people around the globe deal with the dead.

    Seasoned travelers that we are, scary cemeteries and creepy catacombs just don’t bring out the morbid curiosity in us any more. But there are some ridiculously cool historical and religious customs surrounding the dead that deserve a place in tour books. And a stop on your next trip.

    Smithsonian to display remnants of September 11 attacks...

    When a hijacked aircraft smashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Lisa Lefler left behind her briefcase as she fled to safety from her office on the 103rd floor.

    Fifty-six minutes later, 175 of Lefler’s colleagues, as well as that briefcase, were entombed in the wreckage.

    Lefler’s briefcase, along with more than 50 objects collected after the attacks that claimed 3,000 lives, will be displayed September 3 to 11 at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, museum officials announced on Thursday.