The wild success of the traveling Body Worlds exhibition is testimony to the powerful allure that human bodies can have when opened up for display in gallery spaces. But while anatomy museums have shown their visitors much about bodies, they themselves are something of an obscure phenomenon, with their incredible technological developments and complex uses of visual images and the flesh itself remaining largely under researched. This book investigates anatomy museums in Western settings, revealing how they have operated in the often passionate pursuit of knowledge that inspires both fascination and fear. Elizabeth Hallam explores these museums, past and present, showing how they display the human body—whether naked, stripped of skin, completely dissected, or rendered in the form of drawings, three-dimensional models, x-rays, or films. She identifies within anatomy museums a diverse array of related issues—from the representation of deceased bodies in art to the aesthetics of science, from body donation to techniques for preserving corpses and ritualized practices for disposing of the dead. Probing these matters through in-depth study, Anatomy Museum unearths a strange and compelling cultural history of the spaces human bodies are made to occupy when displayed after death.

Written by a museum professional and based on a course taught for many years, The Anatomy of a Museum is an engaging and accessible volume that provides a unique insider’s guide to what museums are and how they operate. An insider’s view of the rarefied world of the museum that provides a refreshing and unique account of the reality of the workings of museum life The material has been successfully tested in a course that the author has taught for 14 years Miller has extensive experience at all levels of museum work, from painting walls for exhibitions to museum directorship Clearly and engagingly written, the book covers all the component parts and various disciplines of museum operations, and opinions and perspectives are drawn from a deep knowledge of the field Includes useful pedagogical material, including questions, discussion topics, and a range of anecdotes

Literary Nonfiction. Lyric Essay. Museum Studies. Travel Writing. ANATOMY OF A MUSEUM visits the Icelandic Phallological Museum in its final months under the direction of its original collector, to trace how what started as a gag gift evolved over decades into a museum known around the world. By its own estimation, the Icelandic Phallological Museum is the only institution in the world to seek a collection of phallic specimens from every mammal species in one country and since the recent demise of a human donor, the collection is now complete. But for all its originality, the IPM proves to be an illuminating part of both long-standing museum traditions and the particular bloom of Icelandic institutions since the 1990s, demonstrating the island's uncanny knack of turning private collections into public museums."

Anatomy is Destiny is the first monograph of artist Marina Font. Her photo-based work explores ideas about identity, gender, territory, language, memory and the forces of the unconscious. The book¿s title, stemming from Freud, also speaks to the ever-evolving understanding of gender and self-realization in the 21st century.The unique pieces reproduced in Anatomy is Destiny stem from a single source photograph made by Font of a nude female figure. Reminiscent of Da Vinci¿s Vitruvian Man, but with arms down and palms forward, the black and white photograph is both consistent and variant as Font renders each piece through application of embroidery, paint, yarn, and other materials. Through the rituals of these traditionally feminine practices, she, in her own words, ¿opens a dialogue between biology and psychology, our social and private persona¿ in the ¿evolving mutability¿ of womanhood.