Abstract
What do you get when you mix death positivity, medical history, bibliophilia, and cultural geography? The answer: a deep dive into the history of books bound, or allegedly bound, in human skin. Author Megan Rosenbloom is the Collection Strategies Librarian at UCLA Library in Los Angeles and is the co-founder and director of Death Salon, an on-going death positive space for artists, intellectuals, and, really, any mortal with a desire to talk about the culturally taboo subject of death. And death is certainly at the center of Rosenbloom’s recent publication, Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation Into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin. Particularly, she investigates the juxtaposition of human death and the birth of an artifact made from their remains. In doing so, Rosenbloom raises important questions for the fields of cultural geography and death studies: How does the dark history of cadaver exploitation by anatomists contribute to current day suspicion of medical professionals by Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) and women? What cultural norms created an avenue for 18th and 19th century medical professionals to create books bound in human skin? And how can we bring humanity back into these artifacts while simultaneously preserving them for historical research?
Using engaged story-telling, Rosenbloom presents case studies of rare books alleged to be bound in human skin. Much of the truth surrounding these books is lost to history, specifically who tanned the leather, bound the book, and eventually owned the book before it found its way into a public or private collection. However, Rosenbloom pieces together cultural clues with scientific evidence via peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF) to determine the legitimacy of the anthropodermic claims. Each case includes a well-researched background and context, paired with Rosenbloom’s travelogue narrative of her journey around the United States and around the world to examine each book. The integration of research and personal narrative gives profound perspective and insight into conducting meaningful, accessible research.
Rosenbloom narrates her first encounter with an anthropodermic book at the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Small, unsuspecting books held dark rumors that were then unconfirmed, but nevertheless suspected to be true. After the death of a young woman in the late 1860s, her skin was used by a wealthy, respected doctor to bind the three medical books. Many themes are woven throughout Dark Archives, but consent seems to be one of the most prominent. The practice of binding books in human skin serves as a microcosm of cultural oppression and exploitation of women and BIPOC bodies; barring one example of a consented request to be bound into a memoir, all other alleged stories behind anthropodermic books involved unconsented use of skin post-mortem. But this makes me think – why are we so disgusted, or at the very least filled with a morbid curiosity, by anthropodermic bibliopegy, but exploit women and BIPOC bodies in other ways deemed culturally appropriate? This book certainly raises intense questions about racial, socio-economic, and gender injustices in both life and death.
My only criticism for this overall intriguing and thought-provoking book is that it could have been longer and more detailed. Rosenbloom writes with clarity, accuracy, and light-hearted humor, but the reader could benefit from a deeper scholarly examination of anthropodermic bibliopegy through the lenses of feminism, social Marxism, and critical race theory. Perhaps Rosenbloom is leaving room for follow up research? Regardless, there is always more we can learn from historical practices of handling remains, ethical considerations of creating artifacts, historical and current concepts of bodily consent, exploitation, and inequities in life and death.
