Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

These prompts can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before or after reading the book.

Pre-Reading “Icebreaker”

Stiff was written in 2004, roughly 15 years before the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020. In the wake of the pandemic, research that involves cadavers (as described in Stiff) has been vital in advancing knowledge about the pandemic. Read the following three articles and discuss how they relate to the general themes of Stiff. The primary themes of the book are: The Profound Usefulness of Cadavers; Innovation and Advancement Borne from Gore; The Entanglement of Spirituality, Sacrilege, and Cultural Norms Surrounding Death.

• NPR’s “With Postmortem Testing, ‘Last Responders’ Shed Light on Pandemic’s Spread”
• MIT Technology Review’s “How a Zambian Morgue is Exposing the Real COVID Toll in Africa”
• The Daily Beast’s “This Macabre Science Could Crack the Mystery of Hearing Loss From COVID”

Teaching Suggestion: After the students read through the articles, have them discuss what they found most interesting about research involving cadavers. You may also elect to have students read and discuss the following articles that deal specifically with the medical community’s grappling with how to handle cadaver research in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: