Anatomy Lessons

Even today Universities adhere to a time-honoured hierarchy of professors, readers, lecturers, demonstrators, and technicians - a structure first established in the European anatomical 'theatres' of the 16th and 17th centuries. These were the players in the theatre of anatomy, but inevitably it was the cadaver that took centre stage. In Anatomy Lessons, Karen Ingham explores anatomy theatres and dissecting rooms in Edinburgh, Dublin, London, and Padua - and discovers spaces in which the notion of surface is probed and dissected in the search to create structure and meaning - to find what lies beneath. The body is a ghostly presence - yet in the theatre of anatomy even the lifeless stage may be imbued with a sense of drama.