This Saturday, September 8, you are cordially invited to join myself and a host of distinguished scholars, makers, and museum folk as we investigate, via a one day symposium termed "The Congress for Curious Peoples," some of the provocative intersections explored in the exhibition "Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses: Visions of Death Made Beautiful in Italy," on view at the London-based Last Tuesday Society until the end of the month.

This first ever UK edition of The Congress for Curious Peoples will feature participants from The Wellcome Collection, The Wellcome Library, and The Gordon Museum of Pathology, as well as some of my very favorite artists, thinkers and scholars, and will take on such heady topics as enchantment and enlightenment, or the sublimation of the magical into the rational world; the secret life of objects, or the non-rational allure of objects and the psychology of collecting; and beautiful death and incorruptible bodies, or the shared drive to immortalize the human body and aestheticize death in both medicine and Catholicism, and will

Full info follows; hope very very much to see you there!

Congress for Curious Peoples: London Edition
Date: Saturday September 8
Time: 11am - 5:30 pm
Admission: £15.00 (Tickets here)
Location: The Last Tuesday Society
Address: 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP
Produced by Morbid Anatomy

11-12: Introduction by Morbid Anatomy's Joanna EbensteinKeynote panel: Enchantment and Enlightenment (20 minute presentations followed by moderated discussion)

• Moderated by Joanna Ebenstein
• David L. Martin, Curious Visions of Modernity: Enchantment, Modernity and the Sacred
• Simon Werrrett, Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History

12-1: Lunch

1-2:30 The Secret Life of Objects: The Allure of Objects and the Psychology of Collecting (20 minute presentations followed by moderated discussion)

• Moderated by Ross MacFarlane, Wellcome Library
• Petra Lange-Berndt, University College London
• Kate Forde, The Wellcome Collection

2:30-3:00 Break

3:00-5:30 Beautiful Death and Incorruptible Bodies: Eternal Life and Aestheticized Death in Medicine and Catholicism (15 minute presentations followed by moderated discussion)

• Moderated by John Troyer, Center for Death and Society, University of Bath 
• Eleanor Crook, Wax artist
• Gemma Angel, PhD Student ad UCL History of Art
• Anna Maerker, Model Experts: Wax Anatomies and Enlightenment in Florence and Vienna, 1775–1815
• Simon Chaplin, Wellcome Library
• Sigrid Sarda, Wax artist
• William Edwards, The Gordon Museum

You can find out more by clicking here, and purchase tickets by clicking here.

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This Thursday, if you are in London or environs, please join Morbid Anatomy and The Last Tuesday Society for a free and gin-drenched opening party for my new exhibition "Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses: Visions of Death Made Beautiful in Italy"! Full details follow. Hope very much to see you there!

"Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses: Visions of Death Made Beautiful in Italy" Exhibition Opening Party
Date: Thursday September 6
Time: 6:00-8:00 PM
Location: The Last Tuesday Society
Address: ***Offsite at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP
Admission: FREE
Produced by Morbid Anatomy
Click here to download Invitation

This Thursday, September 6, if you find yourself in London town, please join us for an opening party for an exhibition of photographs by Joanna Ebenstein of the Morbid Anatomy Blog, The Morbid Anatomy Library and Observatory with waxworks by Eleanor Crook and Sigrid Sarda.

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I have just been alerted to two fabulous looking death and culture conferences both of which are now soliciting papers! Full info for each follows. Apply away!

1) Art and  Death: A Series of Three Workshops
1 November 2012, 21 February and 23 May 2013
The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN

Call for Papers
Submission by 20 September 2012 for workshop 1 (1 November 2012): Anticipation and Preparation

A series of three workshops will be held at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2012-2013 to explore the inter-relationship between art and death. These workshops have arisen from an informal group of doctoral students with shared interests in funerary monuments. The workshops will be structured to recognize that the certainty of death is accompanied by the foreknowledge and uncertainty of what may come after, and that visual representations of these phases have varied over time and between countries. The first workshop will focus on the images and objects related to the impact that the certainty of death has on individuals and the community; the second on art in the context of dying, death and burial; and the final one on representations of the perceived fate of body and soul after death, as well as the continuation of a relationship (if only in memory) between the living and the dead.

Subjects for the workshops could include, but are not limited to:

Workshop 1 (1 November 2012): Anticipation and Preparation
•    Death insurance? Religious gifts and foundations
•    Protective objects and amulets
•    Tombs commissioned during a lifetime, testamentary desire and fulfilment
•    Contemplating images of death, warnings to the living
•    The cult of the macabre, images of illness and decay
•    Apocalyptic visions

Workshop 2: (21 February 2013): Death and Dying
•    A ‘good death’
•    War and violence
•    Funerals/Professional mourners
•    Funerary monuments, memorial architecture, cemetery design
•    Post-mortem portraits
•    Images of the corpse in painting, sculpture, film, photography, etc
•    Crucifixion imagery
•    Death in museum collections

Workshop 3 (23 May 2013) Life after Death
•    Images of the soul /resurrected or re-incarnated body
•    Depictions of the afterlife
•    The incorruptible body, saints, relics and reliquaries
•    Remembering the dead, commemoration in art and/or performance
•    The ‘immortality’ of the artist, post-mortem reputations

Format and Logistics:
•    Length of paper: 20 minutes
•    Four papers per workshop
•    Location: Research Forum, The Courtauld Institute of Art
•    Timing: 10am-midday
•    Expenses: funds are not available to cover participants’ expenses

We welcome proposals relating to all periods, media and regions (including non-European) and see this as an opportunity for doctoral and early post-doctoral students to share their research.

Please send proposals of no more than 250 words to: Jessica.Barker[at]courtauld.ac.uk and Ann.Adams[at]courtauld.ac.uk by the following dates:

•    20 September 2012 for workshop 1 (1 November 2012): Anticipation and Preparation
•    10 January 2013 for workshop 2 (21 February 2013): Death and Dying
•    11 April 2013 for workshop 3 (23 May 2013): Life after Death

For planning purposes, it would be helpful to have an indication of interest in the later workshops, in advance of submission of a proposal.

Organised by Jessica Barker and Ann Adams (The Courtauld Institute of Art)

2) Graduate Student Conference: “Death: the Cultural Meaning of the End of Life”
January 24–25, 2013
LUCAS (Leiden University Centre for Arts in Society)

This conference aims to explore how death has been represented and conceptualized, from classical antiquity to the modern age, and the extent to which our perceptions and understandings of death have changed (or remained the same) over time. The wide scope of this theme reflects the historical range of LUCAS’s (previously called LUICD) three research programs (Classics and Classical Civilization, Medieval and Early Modern Studies and Modern and Contemporary Studies), as well as the intercontinental and interdisciplinary focus of many of the institute’s research projects.

The LUCAS Graduate Conference welcomes papers from all disciplines within the humanities. The topic of your proposal may address the concept of death from a cultural, historical, classical, artistic, literary, cinematic, political, economic, or social viewpoint.

Questions that might be raised include: How have different cultures imagined the end of life? What is the role of art (literature, or cinema) in cultural conceptions of death? How might historical or contemporary conceptualizations of death be related to the construction of our subjectivity and cultural identity? What is the cultural meaning(s) of death? To what extent has modern warfare changed our perceptions of death? How is death presented in the media and how has this changed? In what ways has religion influenced our reflections on death and the afterlife?

Please send your proposal (max. 300 words) to present a 20-minute paper to lucasconference2013[at]gmail.com.

The deadline for submissions is November 15, 2012.

For further information on the first workshop, click here. For further information on the second conference, click here. Special thanks to Lisa Kereszi for turning me onto the latter!

Image: Dead Toreador (Torero Mort). Édouard Manet (French, Paris 1832–1883 Paris)

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WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) TVLine is reporting Grey's Anatomy and 24 actress Kim Raver will join NBC's new drama Revolution in a recurring role.

The site doesn't give much insight into Raver's character but does describe her role as "juicy."

According to NBC, Revolution takes 15 years in the future and shows the aftermath of a global blackout where the entire world lost power. The post-apocalyptic drama is filming in the Port City.

A special VIP screening of the pilot episode will be shown Thursday night at Thalian Hall. The event is free, but you need to have a ticket to get in. Make sure to get there early, because seating is first come, first serve.

If you didn't get a ticket to the screening, you can still watch the pilot episode before its television premiere on NBC September 17 at 10:00 p.m. Click here to watch the pilot episode now.

Raver, 43, most recently played Dr. Teddy Altman on Grey's Anatomy for three seasons before leaving the show in May.

Copyright 2012 WECT. All rights reserved.

Read more from the original source:
Reports: 'Grey's Anatomy's' Kim Raver joins NBC's 'Revolution'

The interactive anatomy tool that facilitates patient-doctor communication and is "social media ready"

Phones won't ever replace doctors. An app for medical diagnosis can't put a gentle hand on your shoulder. It can't calm you with whispers and a warming embrace. Its fingertips aren't soft, smooth, inquisitive. It doesn't have the robust intuition, the seasoned experience, the authority to which you can surrender control...

But a new app from the good people at General Electricand Healthline can help doctors and patients get on the same page about anatomy -- what's hurting whom, and who's doing what where to help it. Among other things, it's designed to help physicians communicate as a visual aid in discussing diagnoses and treatment plans.That's something an app can do very well. It's called BodyMaps, and it involves this spinning apparition:

She does not grant wishes or respond to emotional cues. You can, though, make her spin around quickly (or slowly, slowly), so the app scores satisfactorily in the rubric for "imparts sense of omnipotence."

Beyond detailed anatomy, it also has 200 concise tutorials like "Why do I sneeze?"

Hint: It's related to the sneezing center.

The real highlight of BodyMaps, though, is the feature where you can annotate the images by drawing with your finger -- to illustrate your point. Because not all doctors are good with words, and not all words are good with doctors. You can only write in blue, black, or green. (Not red!)

Excerpt from:
Body Maps: See All Your Parts, Skin Removal Not Required

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“A lovely skeleton, but sadly lacking a skull,” laments one of the tags afforded to the remains of a Capuchin monkey in this show of the unseen at the ever-exotic Grant Museum. “Rarely do ‘incomplete’ specimens make the grade for display.”

When I am in London, I will most certainly be checking out the wonderful sounding exhibition "It Came from the Stores," on view at the incomparable Grant Museum  until August 31st.

You can find out more here.

Image caption: An elephant shrew is among the specimens on show at the Grant Museum of Zoology

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Anatomy of soul the modern Nevsky prospect began to unravel, the artistic director of the Alexandrinsky Theatre in Petersburg, Valeriy Fokin-Director Dmitry Volkostrelov, Dmitry Egorov, Alexei Zabegin, Dmitriy Yushkov and theatre artist Simon Shepherd. Correspondent reports BakuToday, about the beginning of work on the draft Fokin told today, 30 August, and at a press conference dedicated to the start of season 257 Alexandrinsky theatre.

Nevsky-what a street became, this advertising, boutiques, folks. How far this Nevsky left healthily? -ponders Fokin. -But this is hoholivske space left. Lies and deception, encountered by the heroes, there are not changed. And in our project Gogols characters would be presented together with the moderns.

Fuller noted that this work on Nevsky, show our positions on the new programme. The concern is that the theater will celebrate a decade of 7 October new life programme and performance traditions Auditor, which, in fact, started a new interpretation of the classical repertoire.

Valeriy Fokin said that in General, the programme completed its task, we will gather scientific conference, a round table, to analyze the work and talk about how to interact with the classics. Life requires a different approach, said the Director. -Theatre must be deployed to what is happening in society, scan now on the theatrical stage actually much needed analysis, but it is quite another.

Nevsky Prospekt, timed to coincide with the opening of the new artistic programme of Alexandrinsky Theatre Creative space, scheduled for April, 2013. As was stressed at the theatre, in the play will be a strategy document, the so-called verbatim, several novels will present viewers with a collective portrait of todays Nevsky.

See the original post here:
At the Alexandrinsky Theatre began to unravel “Anatomy of soul” of modern Nevskog prospektao

One of the great joys of Greys Anatomys last season was watching the relationship between Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) and Dr. Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw) develop further, as the doctors worked together on the smallest patients inside Seattle Grace Mercy Wests neo-natal unit. The special kinship between the pair is on display in the upcoming, Sept. 4 DVD release of Greys Anatomy: The Complete Eighth Season in a fun little deleted scene that EW has here for you exclusively.

The never-before-seen scene comes from the January episode Suddenly and finds Karev and Robbins performing surgery on one of the hospitals newborns. Huh, Karev says unceremoniously, in the middle of operating. And thats what Robbins takes issue with: Huh? You dont Huh? when you have an open newborn baby on the table, the motherly/teacherly doctors scolds Karev. You know what? Im taking over. Karev continues his mumbling, and thats where the funny comes in between this pair: Hey! Use your words, Karev! Robbins implores him. Or youre not making another cut.

Watch the whole scene here:

Tanner on Twitter: @EWTanStransky

Read more: Greys Anatomy recaps Greys Anatomy boss Shonda Rhimes explains Eric Danes exit, teases unique season opener Loretta Devine talks Greys Anatomy, her Emmy nod, the Waiting to Exhale sequel, and more

More:
‘Grey’s Anatomy’ season 8 deleted scene: ‘Use your words, Karev!’ — EXCLUSIVE VIDEO

Debbie Allen

Debbie Allen is returning to Grey's Anatomy both in front of and behind the camera!

Allen will reprise her role as Catherine Avery, the mother of Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams), for at least one episode in the upcoming ninth season, TVGuide.com has learned exclusively.

Details on Catherine's return are scarce, though we know she'll pop up in the fourth episode. The last we saw of the Avery matriarch, she had quite the fling with Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.) during the medical board exams, much to Jackson's chagrin.

Grey's Anatomy Exclusive: Debbie Allen to direct again in Season 9

As we first reported, Allen will also step behind the camera to direct this season's third episode. The ninth season picks up two to three months after the Stranded Six Five (RIP Lexie!) were rescued after the plane crash. The second episode will jump back in time to when they were rescued, while the Allen-directed episode will jump back to the present timeline, which will find some doctors outside of Seattle Grace with new jobs.

Grey's Anatomy returns Thursday, Sept. 27 at 9/8c on ABC.

The rest is here:
Exclusive: Debbie Allen Returning to Grey's Anatomy as Jackson's Mother

I don't know of a single performer with a more apt surname than Loretta Devine. From Dreamgirls to Waiting to Exhale to her recent Emmy-nominated turn on Grey's Anatomy, every role this multi-hyphenate takes on is instantly imbued with elegance and excellence.

TheInsider.com caught up with the divine Miss. Devine to talk about her Grey's arc (as Adele Webber the Alzheimer's afflicted wife of Seattle Grace's Chief of Staff), that proposed Exhale sequel and what fans can expect from a second season of The Client List!

TheInsider.com: Adele first appeared during the second season of Grey's -- at that time, did you have any idea of how important she'd be to the show? Loretta Devine: No, absolutely not. It's been almost eight years now and you never know when they're going to call you in it's always about availability. The last few seasons, I had a block of time and was excited about that. But when I found out she'd be dealing with Alzheimer's, I thought they were going to kill her off [laughs]. It's always so scary, because Richard was in love with Ellis, who also had Alzheimer's and they just killed her off! I mean, after a year of working ... dead. Good lord! [laughs]

RELATED - Grey's Creator Defends Finale Death

Insider.com: Alzheimer's can sometimes come across as very "act-y" -- how did you prepare and avoid those pitfalls? Loretta: A lot of it is in the writing Shonda Rhimes and her team have so much to do with the look of the character. My father passed and he had a touch of dementia, and I have some friends who are dealing with that with their parents too. I played Adele with a baseline of feeling she was fine for the first few episodes. But what was so great about this past season is she had to acknowledge she was sick, let go of her home, let go of her husband and move into this [assisted living facility]. It was so sad. Now she's sleeping with strangers and [Richard] is dating Debbie Allen [who plays Dr. Catherine Avery] -- it's funny, I was watching TV and finding some of this out with the rest of America and screaming at my television!

VIDEO - Whitney Houston Sparkles in Final Insider Interview

Insider.com: Do you know anything about what the future holds for Adele? Loretta: I don't know if I'm going to be back, or how theyre going to resolve the issue maybe they'll find a cure. I saw Jim [Pickens Jr., who plays Richard Webber] at the premiere of Sparkle and he didn't know either. So we'll see!

Insider.com: How was it seeing your friend Whitney in the film? Loretta: Oh my God, it's such a great loss. And that's what is so weird about movies you feel like the person is there but they're not. When I think of Whitney, I think of a young, vivacious girl, but in Sparkle, she plays this little old lady and I had to get used to seeing her doing that. She got a chance to sing in the film and it just breaks your heart. It's such a tremendous loss. But she was excellent in the movie. Right on point and I believed she believed what she was doing, so that was great.

RELATED - Waiting Sequel Moving Forward

Insider.com: Any update on the Waiting to Exhale sequel we've heard so much about? Loretta: Terry McMillan is still working on the script. They want it to be a tribute to Whitney, but I don't know if they're going to include her character or try something totally different. Also, Gregory Hines' character has to be dealt with too it can't be a movie full of funerals, so I don't know what their plan is. They're trying to get it together.

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Loretta Devine: 'Anatomy' of An Emmy Nom

Ellen Pompeo

"Who's going to survive?"

That's what the new trailer for the ninth season of Grey's Anatomy asks. So, um, does that mean more death is on the way? Naturally, with the exit of Eric Dane from the series and the deafening silence from executive producer Shonda Rhimes on the fate of Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) fans have suspected that one of the two beloved doctors would meet their maker as a result of last season's plane crash.

Grey's Anatomy: Will Arizona Robbins and Mark Sloan die?

In the new trailer, someone is being pushed on a gurney through the hospital. Could it be the potentially ill-fated Mark, who had suffered chest injuries during the crash, or Arizona, who was not only last seen coughing up blood, but also had a bone sticking out of her leg? Maybe Derek (Patrick Dempsey) is being wheeled in to get his hand fixed up? Another question: Is the gurney even being pushed through the hallowed halls of Seattle Grace? Check out the trailer below:

Who do you think will survive?

Grey's Anatomy returns Thursday, Sept. 27 at 9/8c on ABC.

Read the original:
Grey's Anatomy Season 9 Video: Who's Going to Survive?

Aug 23, 2012 06:31 PM ET by Kate Stanhope Follow katestanhope Tweet

Tessa Ferrer

Grey's Anatomy may have lost a few faces this past year, but there will be plenty of newbies roaming the halls when the medical drama returns this fall.

Newcomer Tessa Ferrer has scored a recurring role on the ABC drama's upcoming ninth season, TVLine reports.

Exclusive: Veronica Mars alum Tina Majorino lands a Grey's gig

It is unknown whether Ferrer will play a character based at Seattle Grace, or if she'll be tied to one of the new hospitals to be featured on the show this season when several longtime characters start their new gigs.

Grey's marks Ferrer's TV debut, where she joins new recurring guest stars Veronica Mars vet Tina Majorino, Friday Night Lights' Gaius Charles and True Blood's Camilla Luddington. Former series regulars Chyler Leigh and Kim Raver will not returning come fall, and Eric Dane is set to wrap his arc early in Season 9.

The new season of Grey's Anatomy premieres on Thursday, Sept. 27 at 9/8c on ABC.

The rest is here:
Grey’s Anatomy Admits Newcomer Tessa Ferrer for Recurring Role

Its an old party tricksucking helium from balloons so you can sing like a Wizard of Oz munchkin. When gibbons inhale this non-toxic gas, researchers can detect much more sophisticated impersonations. It turns out that gibbon vocalization techniques mirror those of highly trained soprano opera singers.

Weve shown how the gibbons distinctive song uses the same vocal mechanics as soprano singers, revealing a fundamental similarity with humans, explains Takeshi Nishimura, an associate professor with the Primate Research Institute at Japans Kyoto University.

Scientists had previously believed that human speech was possible, in part, due to suspected evolutionary changes in the larynx, tongue, and vocal tract. But Nishimuras new findings suggest that humans may not have vocal anatomy and ability as unique as previously thought.

Listen to a gibbon call:

And to a gibbon on helium:

We share voice-box physiology with gibbons, and likely other primates, but we also share the way we manipulate sound, Nishimura explains. With both humans and gibbons, the origin of the soundthe larynxis independent from the vocal tools (or training) used to tailor audible messages.

(Related: Humming Fish Reveal Ancient Origin of Vocalization.)

Nishimura and his colleagues studied a young female white-handed gibbon at the Fukuchiyama City Zoo in Kyoto, where they exposed her to helium-rich air. Helium, which shifts gibbon sounds to a resonance that is easier to assess with acoustic equipment, is common in animal vocalization research.

This graceful primate normally makes intense, pure-toneor single-frequencycalls that can travel more than a mile through dense tropical forests in their native Southeast Asia.

It was probably the need to communicate with distant neighbors in such bustling habitats that produced the unique gibbon song. Such ecological and social requirements forced gibbons, using a soprano technique, to produce their pure-tone and loud voices, Nishimura said.

Read the original:
Gibbons and Opera Singers Use the Same Voice Tools

I would like to cordially invite all Morbid Anatomy readers to join us in bidding farewell to the sadly ephemeral Great Coney Island Spectacularium and Cosmorama of the great Dreamland Fire. The exhibition--more on which here--will end after Labor Day weekend, so this is one of your last chances to see it. So please, come raise a glass with us, surrounded by the unfortunate taxidermy once on view at one of the oldest dime museums in the Americas, the Niagara Falls Museum. Join us for a beer in the soon to be dismantled and utterly transporting Cosmorama of the great Dreamland Fire! Help us kiss the lovely toy theater proscenium farewell!

The party will take place next Saturday, August 25th at The Coney Island Museum; There will be free beer and wine, including a special Dreamland Fire Brew, hand-crafted by our friends at the Coney Island Brewery and wine by Red Hook Winery. Artists will be in attendance, as will special guest performers. AND rogue musician Nick Yulman will perform original scores using mechanical instruments for two 1926 films, Now You Tell One and A Wild Roomer by silent comedian and stop-motion animation innovator Charlie Bowers.

The event begins at 8:00 PM; the film will begin at 8:30pm. $20 in advance or at the door. Advance Tickets here. Hope very much to see you there!

You can find out more by clicking here.

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In an interesting 15th century precursor to spectacular displays of human bodies such as Gunther von Hagen's Body Worlds:

Ferdinand I [of Naples (1423 – 1494)], Alfonso II's long-reigning father, had filled an exhibition hall of Castel Nuovo with the mummified remains of his enemies. Paolo Giovio, the sixteenth-century bishop, doctor, and biographer, writes in Historiarum sue temporis: "They say that these dried cadavers were displayed, pickled with herbs, a frightful sight, in the dress they wore when alive and with the same ornaments, so that by this terrible example of tyranny, those who did not wish to be similarly served might be properly afraid."

Just one of the fascinating revelations in the wonderful book Naples Declared: A Walk Around the Bay, by Benjamin Taylor. Another writer--Jacob Burckhardt, in his The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy of 1878 --described it thusly:

Besides hunting, which he practiced regardless of all rights of property, his pleasures were of two kinds: he liked to have his opponents near him, either alive in well-guarded prisons, or dead and embalmed, dressed in the costume which they wore in their lifetime. Fearing no one, he would take great pleasure in conducting his guests on a tour of his prized “museum of mummies.”

And wow; looks like this made an appearance on The Borgias as well; I guess I had better consider giving that show another chance.

Image source: Wikipedia

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Wax model of a decomposing body in a walnut coffin, Italy, 1774-1800

The body in this wooden coffin is in a severe state of decomposition. It may have had two purposes: as ‘memento mori’, a reminder of death, or as a teaching aid. The figure is surrounded by three frogs. Frogs are symbols of rebirth and regeneration because they change so much in their lifetimes. Wax modelling was used in Europe to create religious effigies. From the 1600s, they were also used to teach anatomy. The creation of wax anatomical models, centred in Italy, was based on observing real corpses. The museum known as La Specola, or ‘the observatory’, in Florence was famous for its wax collection.

Found in the always delightful Macabre and Beautifully Grotesque Facebook Group.

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