ABSTRACT
One of the most prominent early anatomy textbooks, the Anatomia porci, has puzzled scholars for a long, long time: Why were pigs selected as the main objects of dissection at the dawn of anatomical study? Moreover, how could the knowledge of early Roman pig dissection have survived the collapse of the Roman Empire, to reappear centuries later in Salerno, Italy? Chapter 8, “Carnivorous Anatomies: Art and Being Beasts”, explores how inter-species anatomical knowledge has traveled with and through the bodies of hogs between the Greco-Roman and Islamicate worlds. At first, this circulation emphasized the role of edibility, until it turned into more philosophical debates concerning human-animal difference, as in the writings of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Donna Haraway, and Charles Foster. Brad Bolman concludes his chapter with an analysis of contemporary artist Miru Kim’s work, which explores the fleshy similarities between humans and hogs through extended nude performances.
