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Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found

von Frances Larson

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277994,927 (3.86)12
"The human head is exceptional. It accommodates four of our five senses, encases the brain, and boasts the most expressive set of muscles in the body. It is our most distinctive attribute and connects our inner selves to the outer world. Yet there is a dark side to the head's preeminence, one that has, in the course of human history, manifested itself in everything from decapitation to headhunting. So explains anthropologist Frances Larson in this fascinating history of decapitated human heads. From the Western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred massacres to Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of the Japanese home to their girlfriends, from Madame Tussaud modeling the guillotined head of Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues, from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, Larson explores our macabre fixation with severed heads."--from publisher's description.… (mehr)
Kürzlich hinzugefügt vonmichaels207, private Bibliothek, junome, esylvia413, misstudorrose, Gordon_E, littoface, Mootastic, atkinseh, Den85
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Severed started like all books should; with an entertaining, potted history of Oliver Cromwell’s skull, post-decapitation. This gave me (false) hope that the book would continue in this vein. Instead, we got plenty of rumination about the idea of severed heads (and other parts) that veered into PhD thesis territory at times. Of course, PhD theses are important too but that’s not what I signed up for here.

There were times when Severed happily strayed back onto the topic of severed heads, where we got to hear about Simon of Sudbury, Oliver Plunkett and Catherine of Siena, amongst others great and good, and Severed was at its best here. Throughout various longueurs however, you can’t escape the feeling that Severed was initially a more academic treatise that, thanks to the severed heads interludes and the front cover, was massaged into a commercial product. ( )
  MiaCulpa | Nov 23, 2023 |
Ci stiamo avvicinando a Halloween e quale modo migliore per festeggiarlo se non leggendo un libro sulle teste mozze? Sono certa che in questi giorni troverete ottimi consigli di lettura se volete leggervi letteratura horror, ma è davvero raro veder consigliata della saggistica in tema. Quindi, eccomi qua a scrivervi di Teste mozze.

Quando l’ho visto sul catalogo di UTET ho deciso che doveva essere mio, perché – dai – come diavolo si fa a resistere a un titolo così intrigante? Un libro sulle teste mozze – che cavolo ci sarà mai da dire sulle teste mozze!? E invece, il racconto di come gli esseri umani si sono rapportati alle teste mozze nel corso della storia ci permette di svelare degli insospettabili retroscena.

Per esempio, durante il colonialismo, non era inconsueto trovare signori europei disgustati dalla pratica di alcuni popoli di decapitare i nemici e di rimpicciolirne la testa. Eppure, questa pratica ebbe un impennata proprio per la smania di collezionare queste teste rimpicciolite da parte di quegli stessi azzimati signori – facendo sì che l’usanza si svincolasse dal suo significato rituale. Oppure, la storia della nascita della frenologia, alla base della moderna neuroscienza, che ci racconta del desiderio degli esseri umani di capire, con poche semplici misurazioni, le caratteristiche dei propri simili, per catalogarli in maniera incontrovertibile. Sfociata ben presto nella ricerca delle differenze tra le “razze” umane, gli scienziati rimasero fin da subito frustrati dalla vanità della ricerca – pure le teste mozze rifiutavano con pervicacia di essere divise in “razze”.

Le teste delle persone riuscivano sempre a mettere in dubbio in modo irritante le idee prevalenti riguardo alle gerarchie razziali.
[…]
La razza si definisce in base alla nazione, alla regione, al paese, al sistema di credenze? Alla fine da qualche parte dovrai pur tracciare un confine, ma troverai sempre individui “simili” tra loro al di qua e al di là della linea.

Larson è molto brava, nonostante l’argomento si presti al grottesco, a mantenere uno stile sobrio e rigoroso, con giusto quella punta di ironia necessaria a rendere Teste mozze un libro estremamente interessante e godibile.

Noi diamo per scontato che il disgusto per queste brutali cerimonie di morte [decapitazioni] sia naturale e istintivo, ma non lo è. Anzi, non soltanto le esecuzioni pubbliche non erano poi così sconvolgenti per gli spettatori del medioevo, ma non turbavano granché nemmeno quelli del XVIII, XIX e persino XX secolo. A distinguerci, nel XXI secolo, è proprio l’empatia con la sofferenza del prossimo, nel quale ci identifichiamo con forza: ma è una differenza forse molto meno netta e salda di quanto vorremmo. ( )
  lasiepedimore | Nov 17, 2023 |
Covers all topics of death, focusing on decapitation, from Medieval religious relics and criminals to the Crown piked on London Bridge, to Madame Guillotine's victims of the Revolution and modern shock artists. It's sometimes a bit heavy and academic, with a propensity to repetition, but if you're at all interested in the more gory aspects of history, it's a fascinating read. ( )
  brittaniethekid | Jul 7, 2022 |
What I thought was going to be entertaining stories of beheadings and found heads, was not. After an interesting story about Oliver Cromwell’s head, the book moved into a look at racism and the philosophical and moral issues of what is a person, where does that person actually reside, why is it emotionally difficult for some people to dissect heads, the historical perspective and moral philosophy of whether it is torture to experiment and see if people feel things after beheading... blah blah blah. Half the stories didn’t even focus on heads, but around other body parts. I was looking for interesting and got long-winded, boring, and pretentious. It was a struggle to finish. Don’t be fooled by the catchy title like I was. ( )
1 abstimmen Monkeypats | Jun 1, 2021 |
This was certainly an interesting book. Yes, gory at times. This seems to be more about heads kept after they were cut off. We tend to think about cut off heads being about other times and places. Larson leads us through how those distanced heads may not be as far away as we thought, right up to today's dissecting labs and the practice of freezing heads in the hope that someday it might be possible to resurrect the person. ( )
  MarthaJeanne | Jan 5, 2021 |
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Josiah Wilkinson liked to take Oliver Cromwell's head to breakfast parties.
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"The human head is exceptional. It accommodates four of our five senses, encases the brain, and boasts the most expressive set of muscles in the body. It is our most distinctive attribute and connects our inner selves to the outer world. Yet there is a dark side to the head's preeminence, one that has, in the course of human history, manifested itself in everything from decapitation to headhunting. So explains anthropologist Frances Larson in this fascinating history of decapitated human heads. From the Western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred massacres to Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of the Japanese home to their girlfriends, from Madame Tussaud modeling the guillotined head of Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues, from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, Larson explores our macabre fixation with severed heads."--from publisher's description.

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