Accounts from the humanities which focus on describing the nature of whole body plastinates are examined. We argue that this literature shows that plastinates do not clearly occupy standard cultural binary categories of interior or exterior, real or fake, dead or alive, bodies or persons, self or other and argue that Noël Carroll’s structural framework for horrific monsters unites the various accounts of the contradictory or ambiguous nature of plastinates while also showing how plastinates differ from horrific fictional monsters. In (...) doing so, it offers an account of the varied reactions of those responding to exhibitions of plastinated whole bodies. (shrink)

Informed consent needs to be practised within a culture of openness if it is to enhance public trust in medical procedures around death. Openness should entail patients not just receiving information from doctors, but also having the right to see certain medical procedures. This article proposes in particular that it would be desirable for the public to be allowed to attend an autopsy of a person they do not know. Evidence from the UK, where members of the public may go (...) backstage to witness the process of cremation, the other technical process in which dead bodies are violently but legitimately assaulted, suggests benefits from a policy of openness. When a family consents to cremation in Britain, their consent is only minimally informed, but the system has nothing to hide, and trust is high. This suggests that the opportunity for lay people also to witness certain medical procedures might do more to restore public trust in medical procedures around death than a narrow interpretation of informed consent in which information is controlled by the profession. (shrink)