Description
This interdisciplinary course will examine the ars moriendi (art of dying) and associated rites of passage and commemoration in order to deconstruct the philosophical, sociological, psychological, and gendered underpinnings of images of the dead. Rituals associated with the decaying, natural body, cleaning, preparing, dressing, waking, displaying, burying, and recording the dead in images will be looked at cross-culturally with examples taken from ancient Egypt through nineteenth death-mask photographs. No prerequisite. Offered upon rotation with other medieval art courses.