The Hypothetical Skeleton (A Letter to Tahar Djaout)

When Tahar Djaout was gunned down in front of his Algiers apartment building on 26 May 1993, Algerians were stunned and enraged. A massive and public outpouring of grief ensued, a mountain of elegiac writing was produced, and the terrible moment of this writer's death was frozen, preserved as the moment that defined his life. Instantly, Tahar Djaout became a literary martyr and a kind of secular saint. My text explores the mediating role of the relic (the bone) in Djaout's texts, and, in turn, it will consider the text itself as a relic and site of mediation between the author and reader, and between the dead and the living. Djaout was the author of five novels and several books of poetry and short fiction, as well as being a founder and editor of the newspaper Ruptures, which disappeared shortly after his death.     

Attitudes of Australian chiropractic students toward whole body donation: A cross‐sectional study

Cadavers play an important role in anatomy education. In Australia, bodies for anatomy education are acquired only through donations. To gain insight into educational dynamics in an anatomy laboratory as well as to facilitate body donation programs and thanksgiving ceremonies, it is important to understand students' attitudes toward body donation. In this cross‐sectional study, the attitudes of Macquarie University's first, second, and fifth year chiropractic students toward body donation were investigated. Macquarie University chiropractic students have a four semester long anatomy program, which includes cadaver‐based instruction on prosected specimens. A questionnaire was used to record respondents' demographics and attitudes toward body donation: personal, by a relative, and by a stranger. It was found that ethnicity and religion affect attitudes toward body donation, with Australian students being more willing to donate a stranger's body and atheists and agnostics being more willing to donate in general. Furthermore, willingness to donate one's own or a family member's body decreases as year of study increases, suggesting a possible negative impact of exposure to cadavers in the anatomy laboratory. This was only true, however, after controlling for age. Thus, the impact of viewing and handling prosected specimens, which is the norm in anatomy classes in Australia, may not be as strong as dissecting cadavers. It is suggested that anatomists and educators prepare students for cadaver‐based instruction as well as exhibit sensitivity to cultural differences in how students approach working with cadavers, when informing different communities about body donation programs and in devising thanksgiving ceremonies. Anat Sci Educ 7: 117–123. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.