7/23/14 12:05 PM A Healthy Mania for the Macabre - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education Page 1 of 10 http://chronicle.com/article/A-Healthy-Mania-for-the/133463/?key=TD53c1I9M3QXN35jb21FOTxQOyA7OE90YyIVYysqbl1TEg%3D%3D The Chronicle Review August 13, 2012 A Healthy Mania for the Macabre By Stephen T. Asma A plastinated human head is part of a "Bodies" exhibit in New York. Timothy A. Clary, AFP, Getty Images I filled out my consent form to donate my body for plastination, and then carried the form around with me for two weeks. I checked the yes box, "I agree that my plastinated body may be used for the medical enlightenment of laypeople and, to this end, exhibited in a museum." I will be immortal, I imagined, in Gunther von Hagens's "Body Worlds"—a skinless anatomical écorché for all to see. I hadn't originally planned an illustrious posthumous career, but von Hagens's Institute for Plastination played just the right pompous note for me when it printed Immanuel Kant's enlightenment slogans on its brochure: "What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope for? What is man?"