The title of this essay refers both to the burial of a human corpse and the aesthetic
debasement of the corpse into something in-human. This posthumous
vilification - a gruesome and spectacular punishment required by law in
several European countries until the Industrial Revolution - was
reserved for those who had taken their own lives. After thinking
through its motivations and implications, I listen for echoes of this
strange aesthetic practice that may still be audible in the twentieth
century and even today - not just in art but also in the actual
treatment of certain, villainous bodies.
Read the essay here.
