It is that time in a major research project when the final outputs are being worked on. In my case that is co-writing a short monograph entitled Executing Magic: The Power of Criminal Bodies. This will explore the magical ‘life cycle’ of the criminal corpse from the seventeenth to the early-twentieth century. The book […]
In the two months since joining the Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse project at the University of Leicester, I like to think I’ve become a highly desirable dinner guest. Before what I’m calling my CrimCorpse period, I could be relied on to chat socially about the weather, dogs, the latest series of RuPaul’s […]
A key question I have repeatedly asked myself in the researching and writing up of my PhD thesis, and one that permeates the Criminal Corpse project, asks why punish the dead? The 1752 Murder Act placed the post-mortem punishment of the corpse at the centre of the criminal justice system in Britain as it stipulated […]
Speaking as an old and ugly academic, I’ve come to realise that sometimes it takes a transfusion of young and energetic blood into an established project to liven it up. In the case of our five-year project, ‘Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse’, funded by the Wellcome Trust, it is the arrival of new […]
Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse is the research blog sharing findings and research experiences from the Wellcome Trust funded project investigating the social, symbolic, medicinal, judicial, political and scientific power of the criminal corpse. Our project team, working from the disciplines of archaeology, medical and criminal history, folklore, literature and philosophy, will post regularly on the […]
Recent Comments