Credit: Gordon Whiting
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Angie Coiro - In Deep Radio live at Kepler's Wednesday, February 10, 2016, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. Click HERE to register for this free event. Doors open at 11:30 a.m. Show starts promptly at 12:00 p.m!
Featured Guest: Thomas Laqueur, The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains
The Greek philosopher Diogenes said that when he died his body should be tossed over the city walls for beasts to scavenge. Why should he or anyone else care what became of his corpse? In The Work of the Dead, acclaimed cultural historian Thomas Laqueur examines why humanity has universally rejected Diogenes’s argument. No culture has been indifferent to mortal remains. Even in our supposedly disenchanted scientific age, the dead body still matters—for individuals, communities, and nations. A remarkably ambitious history, The Work of the Dead offers a compelling and richly detailed account of how and why the living have cared for the dead, from antiquity to the twentieth century.
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