Short-term (Organ) Memory: 100 Years of Chinese and Comparative Media Controversy from Dissection to the Bodyworlds

UC Berkeley's Center for Chinese Studies presents a talk with Larissa Heinrich.

Larissa Heinrich, Department of Literature, UC San Diego

This talk will present some preliminary research on media treatments of the Bodyworlds exhibits in the U.S., China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia.  It will address more specifically how media from each of these regions deals with the controversial problem of Chineseness and individual identity of "donor" bodies in both Gunther Von Hagens original exhibits and the "copycat" exhibits, with bodies produced and processed in China, in the wake of Von Hagens' separation from his Chinese suppliers.  It is part of a larger project that looks at the historical context of contemporary transnational debates about copyright and ownership of Chinese body-materials.