James Johnson

May 14, 2024 | mdpi.com | James Johnson |J. M. A

A body’s symbolic effectiveness does not depend on it standing for one particular thing, however, for among the most important properties of bodies, especially dead ones, is their ambiguity, multivocality, or polysemy. Remains are concrete, yet protean; they do not have a single meaning but are open to different readings. —Katherine Verdery (1999, p. 28), The Political Lives of the Dead. 1.