Date of Graduation
Spring 2025
Degree
Master of Arts in Religious Studies
Department
Languages, Cultures & Religions (part of School of Humanities & Social Science)
Committee Chair
Philippa Koch
Abstract
Cadavers in the human anatomy laboratory occupy a liminal social space, a circumstance that presents a variety of challenges for anatomy students. Cadavers are intended to be scientific objects for study, but their human status makes dissection uniquely challenging. Many of the obstacles to working in the laboratory result from discomfort experienced at the thought of cutting a person (i.e. a social being). In this project, I use ‘cadaver’ to indicate a category of being created in and for the anatomy laboratory. This is distinct from the more general ‘dead body’ in that the category cadaver enables emotional distance and helps students with the mental and emotional preparation required to do dissection. The ambiguity of the category cadaver permits students a choice when engaging with a dead body: they can view it as a person (a social entity) or a specimen (a scientific object). However, relevant literature demonstrates that rather than relying on one perspective, many students shift between perspectives. I use Bill Brown’s “thing theory” as a methodological framework to understand how students use the ambiguous nature of the cadaver to manage the challenges they encounter before and during dissection. After interviewing students regarding their experiences in the anatomy lab and complementing their responses with those of other anatomy students, I suggest that a cadaver is a unique kind of social entity with which students have a relationship that grows and changes through the actual work of dissection. Because the cadaver is simultaneously person and object, students are able to utilize the changeable nature of the cadaver to enable their work dissecting a human body and yet retain a sense of its personhood. I conclude with a few suggestions to better understand the cadaver as a relational being and the importance of doing so.
Keywords
cadaver, relationality, thing theory, anatomy lab, dissection, embodiment
Subject Categories
Anthropology | Religion
Copyright
© Stephanie Teasley
Recommended Citation
Teasley, Stephanie, "A Cadaver Story: Relationality in the Anatomy Laboratory" (2025). MSU Graduate Theses/Dissertations. 4037.
https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/4037
