The Anatomy of Body Worlds - Critical Essays on the Plastinated Cadavers of Gunther von Hagens

Since its Tokyo debut in 1995, Gunther von Hagens'' Body Worlds exhibition has been visited by more than 25 million people at museums and science centers across North America, Europe, and Asia. Preserved through von Hagens'' unique process of plastination, the bodies shown in the controversial exhibit are posed to mimic life and art, from a striking re-creation of Rodin''s The Thinker, to a preserved horse and its human rider, a basketball player, and a reclining pregnant woman--complete with fetus in its eighth month. This interdisciplinary volume analyzes Body Worlds from a number of perspectives, describing the legal, ethical, sociological, and religious concerns which seem to accompany the exhibition as it travels the world.