Introduction: The Challenge of the Epidemic Corpse

Abstract

The epidemic corpse has long been understood as a locus of social, moral, and biological danger. In various historical and contemporary settings, it has been seen to pose a challenge to society to which there is no easy response. We ask how the epidemic corpse might also be seen to challenge and threaten central presumptions within social theory. This introduction begins the task of sketching a comparative history of the epidemic corpse as a generative feature of social debate and contestation, from ancient Greece to the present. We take this comparative approach as the basis for rethinking the notion of contagion within the medical humanities more broadly, and we propose a new reading of epidemics as episodes of material production.

The original version of this chapter was revised: Author provided funding information has been added. The erratum to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62929-2_10