Encountering Death

The dead Christ is one of the most widespread images of death in the world. This bloodied, wounded body has for centuries been a familiar object for contemplation.
Today, we see broken and traumatised bodies on the news and in popular culture, but seldom first hand.

How does the prevalence of death in popular culture and in the media affect how we think about it?
Do these regular encounters with death help us to empathise with real suffering, or do we become desensitised to such trauma?

_{Floor 2, Gallery 46, Baroque Art.}

After Jacopo Sansovino, The Dead Christ, painted terracotta, early 17th century

This idealised body of Christ is laid out as if sleeping. It is commonplace for memorials to describe death as like a sleep. Of course, unlike in death, a sleeping body continues to breathe, and its heart continues to beat. For centuries, the irreversible loss of heart and lung function signalled death, but today, medical technology can preserve such function, even in the absence of brain activity. This means that people may not always agree about when death has occurred. Differences in the law mean that a person might be considered dead in one part of the world, but alive in another.

What functions are necessary for a human being to be alive?
Does the complete loss of brain activity make a human being dead, and who decides?

Supported by the Ashmolean Museum and Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences