The tomb of the unknown soldier, modern mourning, and the reinvention of the mystical body / Laura Wittman.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

PART ONE: Anonymity and Sacrifice -- Introduction: The Return of the Dead ; A Unanimous Idea ; Unanimity and confused bones ; The origins of the Unknown Soldier ; The primal scene -- Identification and Chorality ; Bones manifest themselves ; Recognition, or reaching across the divide of living and dead ; Sculpted water ; A silent inscription -- Sacrifice and the non finito ; Taking up anonymity ; Absolution ; Initiation -- PART TWO: Embodiment and Spectacle -- Introduction: The Undead Body, The Photographic Image, and the Religious Icon ; Embodiment and Imbestiamento ; Trauma and animality ; The symbolic journey ; The darkness within -- Mutilation and Spectacle ; Phantom pain, mutilation, and repetition ; Touching the absent body: the "Banner of Randaccio" ; Transmitting the experience of death: Promethean fire -- Mourning Transcendence and Reenchanting the Flesh ; Confronting Mortality ; Mourning Transcendence ; Modernity and the Mystical Body.

"At the end of the First World War, countries across Europe participated in an unprecedented ritual in which a single, anonymous body was buried to symbolize the overwhelming trauma of the battlefields. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier explores the creation and reception of this symbolic national burial as an emblem for modern mourning.

Bringing together literature, newspaper accounts, wartime correspondence, and popular culture, The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier examines how the Unknown Soldier was imagined in diverse national contexts and used by radically opposed political parties. Laura Wittman argues that this monument established a connection between the wounded body vulnerable to the war machine and a modern identity defined by common mortality and social alienation. Highly original and interdisciplinary, The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier powerfully links the symbolic language and ethics of mourning to a fascinating national ritual."--Pub. desc.

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