Abstract

Proponents of cremation in the late nineteenth century, almost to a person medical men, understood burning the dead in high technology ovens borrowed from the steel industry as a great step forward for progress and civilization. This lecture asks why they thought this was the case and why the materialist view of the body that they advocated had relatively little purchase even among the cultural radicals who embraced cremation. It will look at one particular instance of medical advocacy as a utopian project to rid the dead of their history.

About Dr. Laqueur

Thomas Laqueur is the Helen Fawcett Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is particularly renowned for his books Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud and Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation. His most recent academic work has culminated in his book The Work of the Dead, which is the winner of the 2016 PROSE Award in European & World History (Association of American Publishers), as well as the 2016 Gold Medal Winner in World History (Independent Publisher Book Awards).

Info

The lecture will take place in room 282 of the University Centre starting at 2:30pm, followed by a reception in the History Lounge (433PA) at 4:00pm.