Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
London : Granta, 2015.
Description
"The human head is exceptional. It accommodates four of our five senses, encases the brain, and boasts the most expressive set of muscles in the body. It is our most distinctive attribute and connects our inner selves to the outer world. Yet there is a dark side to the head's preeminence, one that has, in the course of human history, manifested itself in everything from decapitation to headhunting. So explains anthropologist Frances Larson in this fascinating history of decapitated human heads. From the Western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred massacres to Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of the Japanese home to their girlfriends, from Madame Tussaud modeling the guillotined head of Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues, from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, Larson explores our macabre fixation with severed heads."--from publisher's description.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Monkeypats
What I thought was going to be entertaining stories of beheadings and found heads, was not. After an interesting story about Oliver Cromwell’s head, the book moved into a look at racism and the philosophical and moral issues of what is a person, where does that person actually reside, why is it
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emotionally difficult for some people to dissect heads, the historical perspective and moral philosophy of whether it is torture to experiment and see if people feel things after beheading... blah blah blah. Half the stories didn’t even focus on heads, but around other body parts. I was looking for interesting and got long-winded, boring, and pretentious. It was a struggle to finish. Don’t be fooled by the catchy title like I was. Show Less
LibraryThing member Rudolf
Great book. Original and well written. Also very learned, but accessible. Each chapter has its own theme and disciplinary approach, ranging from art history to medical history and postcolonialism. You can read them separately but I would not recommend doing that. Taken together they offer you an
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enjoyable introduction to the anthropology of things and their agency so in the end it's not about human heads: it's about humans and what humanity is all about. Show Less
LibraryThing member le.vert.galant
This is an engaging study of the place of disembodied heads in Western culture. The severed head has myriad manifestations: anthropological speciman, war trophy, medical subject, sainted relic. In all cases, there is something disquieting about it, something that calls into question where our self
All these topics are touched upon in a text that is lively and avoids repetition. The subject is disturbing and I spent one long night trying to purge the imagery from my consciousness, but the book is well worth reading for showing a problematic corner of our civilization. Like the dusty cabinets and formaldehyde-filled jars that preserve these heads, decapitation is simultaneously repugnant and alluring.
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resides, where life begins and ends.All these topics are touched upon in a text that is lively and avoids repetition. The subject is disturbing and I spent one long night trying to purge the imagery from my consciousness, but the book is well worth reading for showing a problematic corner of our civilization. Like the dusty cabinets and formaldehyde-filled jars that preserve these heads, decapitation is simultaneously repugnant and alluring.
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LibraryThing member brittaniethekid
Covers all topics of death, focusing on decapitation, from Medieval religious relics and criminals to the Crown piked on London Bridge, to Madame Guillotine's victims of the Revolution and modern shock artists. It's sometimes a bit heavy and academic, with a propensity to repetition, but if you're
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at all interested in the more gory aspects of history, it's a fascinating read. Show Less
LibraryThing member MiaCulpa
Severed started like all books should; with an entertaining, potted history of Oliver Cromwell’s skull, post-decapitation. This gave me (false) hope that the book would continue in this vein. Instead, we got plenty of rumination about the idea of severed heads (and other parts) that veered into
There were times when Severed happily strayed back onto the topic of severed heads, where we got to hear about Simon of Sudbury, Oliver Plunkett and Catherine of Siena, amongst others great and good, and Severed was at its best here. Throughout various longueurs however, you can’t escape the feeling that Severed was initially a more academic treatise that, thanks to the severed heads interludes and the front cover, was massaged into a commercial product.
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PhD thesis territory at times. Of course, PhD theses are important too but that’s not what I signed up for here.There were times when Severed happily strayed back onto the topic of severed heads, where we got to hear about Simon of Sudbury, Oliver Plunkett and Catherine of Siena, amongst others great and good, and Severed was at its best here. Throughout various longueurs however, you can’t escape the feeling that Severed was initially a more academic treatise that, thanks to the severed heads interludes and the front cover, was massaged into a commercial product.
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LibraryThing member MarthaJeanne
This was certainly an interesting book. Yes, gory at times. This seems to be more about heads kept after they were cut off. We tend to think about cut off heads being about other times and places. Larson leads us through how those distanced heads may not be as far away as we thought, right up to
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today's dissecting labs and the practice of freezing heads in the hope that someday it might be possible to resurrect the person. Show Less
Language
Original publication date
2014-11-06
ISBN
9781783780563
DDC/MDS
| 306.4 |