1. Mediating Life & Death Narratives Dr. Philip Stone Presentation by Prof. Richard Sharpley Taiwan, December 2010

2. Dark Tourism in Contemporary Society: Mediating Life & Death Narratives Agenda Highlight phenomenon of dark tourism. Discuss contemporary mortality & interrelationship with dark tourism. Illustrate Body Worlds as an empirical example. Suggest dark tourism as a mediating institution.

3. Phenomenon of Dark Tourism

4. Dark Tourism  Dark tourism has a long history.  Issue today is how dark tourism is interrelated with contemporary mortality... and implications thereof... - An Old Concept in a New World - ‘Dark tourism is the act of travel to sites associated with death, suffering or the seemingly macabre.’ Stone (2006:146)

5. Death in Contemporary Society  Death is underpinning to life, and to the order of life.  Issue of the ‘evolving deathbed’ & ‘absent/present’ death paradox. ‘One cannot easily look directly at either the sun or death’. Francois de la Rochefocuald (1678) - A Thanatological Framework -

6. Absent/Present Death  Dark tourism (re)creates death for contemporary consumption.  Dark tourism may provide reflective mediating experiences. ‘Real death of the Self has been sequestered (made absent) from the public gaze during the past sixty years or so. However, in its place is (re)created death, where the Significant Other Dead cohabit the living world (or made present) through a plethora of mediating channels...’ Stone (2010) - A Thanatological Framework -

7. Dark Tourism in Context  Body Worlds is world’s most successful exhibition.  Uses plastination to preserve cadavers.  Generates highly charged ‘moral conversations’... - The Body Worlds Exhibition -

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13. Body Worlds Exhibition Promoting Life Narratives (through Death) Emergent Themes - Ethnographic Research - Mortality Reflection of the Self (through the Other)

14. Dark Tourism & Mediation  Research highlights issues of mediation/mediator & taming of death within public spaces... ‘...where the absent deathbed has been (re)created through the Body Worlds experience, dark tourism can provide a contemporary mediating relationship of mortality reflection for the Self through Other death.’ Stone (2010) - Mortality Reflection -

15. Dark Tourism & Mediation  Why is dark tourism a mediating institution? Represents and communicates death - Concluding Thoughts... - ‘Death Capital’ Contemporary death reconfigured & revitalised Symbolic display of death

16. Any Questions Thanks for Listening Discover more about the ‘darker side of tourism’ by visiting The Dark Tourism Forum at www.dark-tourism.org.uk

17. References This presentation is based upon : Stone, P.R. (forthcoming) Dark Tourism and Plastinated Cadavers: Mediating Life and Death Narratives at Gunter von Hagens’ Body Worlds