Workshop: Corpses and Destruction: Destroyed, Hidden, Profaned and Displayed Corpses.

Conference held in Paris, France. 12th, 13th and 14th September 2012

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales 105 Boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris, France

This workshop addresses the first phase of the research programme “Corpses of mass violence and genocide”. In the context of mass violence and genocide, death is not the end of the executors’ work. After the abuses, the victims’ corpses are treated and manipulated in very specific ways, amounting in some cases to true social engineering; this phase is remarkably little documented in the existing research. This conference aims therefore to explore this phase of destruction, across a range of extreme situations including mass cremations, concealment, profanation, displacement or re-burials. Focused on the 20th century, the conference will seek to reevaluate the motivations, the ideological frameworks and the technical processes at work in the destruction of corpses, taking a comparative and instrumental perspective which should open to new research in mass violence and genocide studies.

Organisers

Elisabeth Anstett (CNRS, France) and Jean-Marc Dreyfus (University of Manchester, United Kingdom)

Advisory Panel

Michel Signoli (CNRS, France), Caroline Fournet (University of Groningen, Netherlands), Sévane Garibian (University of Neufchatel and Geneva, Switzerland), Jon Shute (University of Manchester, United Kingdom).

Further information